Jaguar Sports Weekend Update
Men’s Basketball
Fresh off of clinching a spot in the Sun Belt Conference Tournament in New Orleans, South Alabama Men’s basketball team returned home for Senior Night to host the Troy Trojans. A big scoring night by Ken Williams and Barrington Stevens III led the Jaguars to a 96-93 win at the Mitchell Center.
The Jags finish the regular season with back-to-back wins to improve their record to 11-20 overall and 9-11 in conference play. Troy ends the season with a 10-19 mark overall and a 5-15 mark in conference play.
Troy’s Musa Abdul-Aleem scored 37 points with eight 3-pointers against the Jaguars while Wesley Person added 25 points. But it was the Jaguars offensive surge in about midway through the second half that propelled the Jaguars to victory.
Dionte Ferguson played 36 minutes with 19 points and 14 rebounds for his team-leading fourth double-double of the season. In the second half alone, he had 13 points and seven rebounds.
Williams was a point shy of equally his career high with 28 points and a perfect 9-for-9 from the charity stripe. Stevens III set a new personal record with 19 points and five 3-pointers. Both Williams and Stevens combined to score all five points for the Jags in the final 25 seconds.
With the win, the Jaguars earn the #6 seed in the Sun Belt Tournament and will play Arkansas-Little Rock on Thursday night at 7:30pm.
Softball
The #24 ranked Jaguar softball team dropped both games of a Saturday double-header to #7 ranked Lousiana-Lafayette by scores of 3-2 in Game 1 and 9-3 in game 2.
The Jags rally came up short after scoring a pair of runs in the bottom of the sixth inning but could not overcome the one run deficit their next time up in the bottom of the seventh.
Emily Messer led off the inning with an infield single followed by freshman Kristian Foster being hit by a pitch. Kaleigh Todd came on to pinch run for Foster. Messer scored from third on Rathburn’s RBI single and Todd would score on Amanda Minihan’s two-out bases-loaded walk before Amanda Herron popped out to end the threat.
In the bottom of the seventh Messer drew a one-out walk but Todd struck out swinging and Stephanie Pilkington flied out to left field. Messer was 2-for-3 in the game with a run scored while Rathburn was 1-for-3 with an RBI. Devin Brown gave up two earned runs on two hits while striking out three with five walks in 3 2/3 innings. McGill threw 3 1/3 innings of relief and gave up one unearned run on four hits with one strikeout and no walks.
In game two on Saturday the Cajuns scored in all but one inning including a three-run second inning and a two-run seventh inning.
Messer was 2-for-4 with two runs scored. Pilkington went 2-for-3 whiel Rathburn went 1-for-3 with two RBI. Brown took the loss in game two as well.
In the third and final game of the series on Sunday, the Jaguars took a 4-3 lead in the third inning then followed up with a three-run fifth inning and an insurance run in the bottom of the sixth to defeat the Cajuns 8-5.
Blair Johnson went 2-for-2 with a run scored and an RBI. Pilkington went 1-for-4 with two RBI, Rathburn went 1-for-3 with a run scored and an RBI while Kaitlyn Griffith went 1-for-2 with a run scored and three RBI.
Devin Brown earned the win to run her record to 8-4 on the season with Kalen McGill earning her third save of the season.
The Jags record sits at 16-5 overall and 1-2 in conference play.
Baseball
After falling to UALR in the opening game 4-3 the Jags came back and won the next two games to win the series with scores of 1-0 and 3-2.
In game one Cole Billingsley went 3-for-4 with a run scored and a walk as Kevin Hill went 5 innings and allowing one hit with seven strikeouts and four walks.
In the second game, USA and UALR were scoreless through seven-and-a-half innings before the Jaguars scratched the one and only run across the plate in the bottom of the seventh. Daniel Martinez got the game winning RBI.
In the third and final game of the series, the Jags scored in the bottom of the 11th inning on an error to win the game.
Martinez led off the inning with a single to right field followed by Garrett DeGallier drawing a walk. Pinch hitter Cameron Cummings grounded to shortstop who threw wide of third base trying to get a forced out but instead allowed Martinez to score the game-winning run.
The Jags improve to 11-5 overall and 2-1 in SBC play. UALR falls to 4-7 overall and 1-2 in SBC play.