USA Softball Moves Up One Spot In Poll; Holds Steady In Other
The South Alabama Softball team made a slight move in one poll while holding steady in the other. The Jags are 15-2 on the season and coming off a 4-1 record over the weekend at the Gulf Coast Classic where their only loss was a narrow one #12 Baylor.
The team remained at #14 in the USA Today/NFCA top 25 poll while they moved up one stop in the ESPN.com/USA Softball Top 25 to #15.
The Jaguars are the only other school in the state ranked in the top 25. Alabama is ranked #11, Auburn narrowly misses at 26 and UAB is 33rd.
The only other Sun Belt Conference school to make the poll is Louisiana-Lafayette, the preseason choice to win the conference title, who are ranked 23rd.
The team travels to Boca Raton, Florida for the Parents’ Weekend Tournament at Florida Atlantic University this weekend.
Jags Baseball Falls At Jackson State 5-4
South Alabama fell to Jackson State on the road last night 5-4. On the night, Jaguar pitchers issued 10 walks which proved to be the difference.
Starter Jared Gates allowed three unearned runs on two hits in five innings of work. He finished with four strikeouts and six walks. Matt Peacock, who took the loss, walked all three batters he faced in relief of Gates. Cameron Carleton threw three shutout innings while allowing four hits, a strikeout and a walk.
The Jags scored two runs in the first inning to give Gates early run support. Bud Collura got on base with a one-out walk before advancing to third on a single by Hayden Jones. He scored on an RBI grounout by Matt Mojciechowski to take a 1-0 lead. Erik Hindmon reached base on a fielding error by JSU’s third baseman which schoed Jones from second for a 2-0 lead.
The Tigers would tie the game up in the bottom of the fourth after an RBI double and a passed ball.
The Jags tied the game back up in the top of the fifth when Collura doubled and later scored on a two-out RBI single by Jones.
JSU answered right back with two runs in the bottom of the sixth. The bases were loaded by three consecutive walks before a sacrifice fly and an RBI groundout to shortstop scored the two deciding runs.
The Jags would only manage one more run the rest of the way. In the top of the eighth Hindmon would advance to third on a flyout to right field by Adam Ballew then would score when the relay throw to third sailed out of play.
The Jags will play again tonight against #12 Mississippi State in Starkville, MS. First pitch is scheduled for 6:30pm and will be broadcast on ESPN3 and WNSP.
USA Men’s Golf Wins Samford Intercollegiate Championship
The South Alabama men’s golf team won the championship title at the Samford Intercollegiate on Tuesday.
They were trailing ninth ranked UAB by 16 strokes after the first round on Monday but were able to overtake them by two shots to win the tournament. This is the Jaguars first championship title shince winning the BancorpSouth Intercollegiate title on April 5, 2011. It’s also their fourth top-3 performance of the year so far.
Lane Hulse recorded two scores of 74 and a final round 73 to tie for second place individually as he helped the team to the title on Tuesday.
The team will play again on Monday when they travel to compete in the Tiger Invitational hosted by Auburn University.
USA’s Farish Beard Named Pitcher Of The Week Again
Junior Farish Beard struck out 36 in her 18 innings pitched during the Gulf Coast Invitational to earn lead the Jaguars to a 4-1 record. | Photo usajaguars.com
On Monday the Sun Belt Conference office named South Alabama’s Farish Beard the Conference Pitcher of the Week for the second time this season.
Beard (9-1) struck out a career-high 15 batters in one game, the second-most in a single game for a Jaguar, and it came in her second career no-hitter against UT-San Antonio. Beard was 3-0 in her three starts over the weekend with a total of 36 strikeouts in 18 innings, for an average of two strikeouts per inning, and only allowing a pair of hits and no earned runs.
After her performance over the weekend her ERA fell to a conference leading 0.15 as she held opponents to a 0.34 batting average with complete game shutouts against Ohio and UTSA. She also leads the conference in opposing batting average of 0.83, wins, fewest runs allowed with 4 and fewest earned runs allowed with 1.
Beard previously was given the same honor on February 10 for her performance in the Mardi Gras Invitational. Through four weeks of voting a Jaguar has earned a weekly award three of those weeks as Blair Johnson earned Player of the Week last week.
USA travels to Boca Raton, Florida for the Parents’ Weekend Invitational this weekend, hosted by former Sun Belt Conference member Florida Atlantic. The Jags will face Marshall University, Virginia Tech, Illinois, FAU, and Illinois again.
USA Women’s Basketball Fall In Overtime 68-61
South Alabama’s woes continue as they lost their seventh consecutive game, this time in overtime, to Louisiana-Lafayette in the Cajundome 68-61.
The losing streak began against Troy on February 6, the game in which Brittany Webb was injured and lost for the remainder of the season. The team was already thin, but was extremely thin at point guard.
After dropping their last seven consecutive games, the lady Jaguars stand at 7-19 overall and 5-11 in conference play. They have fallen out of the top eight, who will fill the eight seeds for the Sun Belt Conference Tournament in New Orleans which is fast approaching.
With two games remaining, they are two games behind a trio of teams sitting at 7-9 in the conference. The Jags would have to win out and get some help from those teams ahead of them in order to potentially make the conference tournament. The math is pretty simple actually, win two games and ULM lose two games and the Jaguars are in.
Both games are at home for the Jaguars which could be just the help they need to get back into the win column. At least it would give them momentum going into the offseason. ULM will play the final two games of the season on the road at Arkansas State and Arkansas-Little Rock, the first and third place teams in the conference.
As for the game itself, Ronnka Robertson posted a career performance with 28 points and 17 rebounds. But in overtime, the Cajuns outshot the Jags at the free throw line which made the difference. ULL was 9-of-10 from the free throw stripe, while the Jaguars were only 5-of-10.
The Lady Jags will try to do their part on Wednesday when they host Texas State at the Mitchell Center for a 7:05pm tipoff.
USA Men’s Basketball Cannot Overcome ULL’s Fast Start
South Alabama could not overcome a fast start by Louisiana-Lafayette and a 25-point halftime lead to fall 102-76 on Sunday in the Cajundome.
ULL used a 25-6 run over an 11-minute span in the first half to score the most first half points against the Jaguars all season. Bryant Mbamalu scored a game-high 32 points for the Cajuns and 11 of his 17 first half points in the opening 4:07 of the game.
Freshman Ken Williams recorded a career-high 22 points on five three-pointers. Sophomore Barrington Stevens III added a career-high 20 points while going 4-for-4 from outside the arc. They combined to score 31 of the Jaguars 49 points in the second half.
Augustine Rubit narrowly missed another double-double with 17 points and nine rebounds as he added four blocks to earn his way into the top 25 in the conference in this category.
This was the first Jaguar opponent to score over 100 points on the Jaguars since New Orleans on February 5, 1995.
With the loss, the Jaguars fall to 9-20 overall and 3-13 in conference play and only one game in the win column behind eighth place and the final seed in the conference tournament.
With the loss the Jaguars were eliminated from the Sun Belt Tournament and with that news Augustine Rubit’s phenominal career in a South Alabama jersey will conclude on Saturday against UT-Arlington.
The Jags will face Texas State on Thursday and UT-Arlington on Saturday to close out the season and hopefully have some positive momentum going into the offseason.
USA Baseball Clinch Series Against #24 Arkansas
The Jaguar baseball team fell 12-1 in the first game against #24 ranked Arkansas but rebounded on Saturday to claim both games of a double-header to win the weekend series against the Razorbacks.
In the first game the Razorbacks jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the bottom of the first and the Jaguars never had a chance to rebound.
In game one of the double header, Locke St. John allowed just one run while scattering eight hits in a career-high 8 1/3 innings pitched as the Jags won 2-1. St. John struck out three and only walked two batters as he retired 8 of his final 10 batters faced. Brandon Hallford came in in the ninth to pick up his second save of the season.
In game two, Jaguar righty Kevin Hill allowed three runs on seven hits through eight innings of work while striking out five and walking three in his first career start as the Jags won the series finale 5-3.
Through the first eight innings Hill retired 10 consecutive batters before hitting a player with a pitch and walking another batter and being lifted in the ninth inning. Righty Brandon Hallford pitched one inning in relief and allowed only one hit to pick up his third save of the year, his second save of the day.
The Jags evened their season record at 5-5. They will travel to Jackson, Mississippi to face Jackson State on Tuesday before traveling to Starkville to face Mississippi State on Wednesday.
USA Softball Finishes Gulf Coast Classic With Win
The #14 ranked South Alabama Jaguar softball team split their two games on Saturday in the Gulf Coast Classic in Gulfport, Mississippi.
In the early game, the Jags defeated UT-San Antonio 3-0 as Farish Beard threw her second career no-hitter and a career-high 15 strikeouts.
USA outhit UTSA 4-0 and scored all of their runs int he fourth inning.
Freshmen Taylor Rodgers and Amanda Minahan combined to drive in the three Jaguar runs in the win. Rodgers delivered a two-RBI single. Minahan hit a solo home run, the first of her career to account for the third run against the Roadrunners.
In the nightcap, the Jags fell to #12 Baylor 1-0 as they could only manage two hits to the Bears nine and the first shutout of the Jaguars in their last 58 games which dates all the way back to their 4-0 loss to #1 Alabama on February 28, 2012.
Hannah Campbell suffered the loss against Baylor to fall to 4-1 on the season after pitching all seven innings, striking out eight and only walking one and allowing the one earned run.
In the final game of the tournament for the Jaguars, they defeated UT-Chatanooga 2-1 to go 4-1 in the 2014 Gulf Coast Classic.
Farish Beard struck out nine batters in four innings to improve to 9-1 on the season. Hannah Campbell struck out a two in three innings of relief to earn her third save of the season.
Stephanie Pilkington led USA by going 3-for-3 and scoring the game-winning run. Chloe Rathburn broke the 1-1 tie in the bottom of the fourth inning after Rodgers tied the game up in the previous inning after Clara Bowen’s RBI single.
USA outhit UT-Chatanooga 5-2 and took advantage of advantage of two errors by the Moc’s.
The Jaguars are now 15-2 on the season and will next travel to Boca Raton, Florida next weekend for the Parents’ Weekend Tournament hosted by Florida Atlantic.
The 2014 South Alabama Football Schedule Has Been Released
The Jaguars rally at mid field after they enter the field to just prior to kickoff against Western Kentucky on Saturday, September 14, 2013.
This morning the Sun Belt Conference released the conference schedule. We already knew the Jags non-conference schedule but the SBC schedule was still up in the air at to who the team would be facing.
There are two SEC schools on the schedule and no FCS opponents.
The departure of Western Kentucky and the additions of Georgia Southern and Appalachian State as full members and New Mexico State and Idaho as football only members shuffled the schedules somewhat.
You will notice the Jags do not play ULM or New Mexico State this season, but they do travel to App. State and Idaho while hosting Georgia Southern.
After hosting Kent State, the will return to Ohio to face them again. The Jags will wrap up the season with two non-conference games against an SEC opponent in South Carolina and the Naval Academy.
Below is the full schedule for the Jags this season. Mark your calendars and get those tailgating and traveling plans started. We are just over six months away from kickoff of the 2014 season!
9/6 South Alabama @ Kent State
9/13 Miss. State @ South Alabama
9/20 Georgia Southern @ South Alabama
9/27 South Alabama @ Idaho
10/4 South Alabama @ Appalachian State
10/11 OPEN
10/18 Georgia State @ South Alabama
10/25 Troy @ South Alabama
11/1 South Alabama @ Louisiana-Lafayette
11/8 South Alabama @ Arkansas State
11/15 Texas State @ South Alabama
11/22 South Alabama @ South Carolina
11/28 Navy @ South Alabama
*NOTE: Kickoff times have not yet been announced.
“We are extremely excited about our 2014 schedule. Most people have pointed to this year since the beginning of the football program as one with peaked interest and enthusiasm,” Athletics Director Joel Erdmannstated. “The home portion of the schedule brings a type and level of college football experience to Mobile that has not been here before. Each opponent provides a unique attractiveness to that particular game. Adding even more intrigue is the continued development of our program against quality opponents both at home and on the road, as we will once again be facing multiple programs that have participated in a bowl game the last couple years.”
“Our crowds have continued to ‘mature’ and grow traditions, tailgating a certain way, cheering a certain way in various situations and ultimately creating a home field advantage which is vital to our program’s success. This year’s schedule brings a great opportunity for our loyal fans to renew their season tickets and to bring new people into the Jaguar Nation.”
“We are excited by the types of teams we are playing, obviously it will be very challenging. It’s probably the most challenging schedule we have played to date,” head coach Joey Jones said. “It’s a very challenging schedule, but it’s one that when our players look at it they get excited.”
“A lot of schools play four non-conference teams early in their schedule,” Jones stated. “I like the fact that Navy is at the end of ours.”
“We are going to have to watch how we practice and monitor our players,” Jones said about having five straight games before an off date. “We’re playing all Division I teams with some road games in that stretch, so we are going to have to be smart about how we handle these young men during the season. We have a lot of seniors who will be mentally tough enough to handle this, but we have to make sure that we do things and make decisions throughout the season where we are not wearing our players out.”
“I see Troy, Louisiana-Lafayette, Arkansas State and Texas State all in a row, that’s a tough road right there,” Jones continued. “But, it’s exciting to have Georgia Southern, a team that beat Florida last year, for our opening home conference game, there should be a lot of buzz around that game. Then we go to Idaho and Appalachian State which is two long trips in a row. I don’t know that you can ever design a schedule that is going to be perfect, so the bottom line is we are going to have to get ready each week to win ball games. That’s the mindset that we are going to have.”
Of the 12 teams on the schedule this season, five of them played in bowl games last season with each of them winning their game. Eight of the 12 teams had a winning season last year as well.
USA Softball Sweep Pair Of Friday Games; Sets up Top-15 Clash Saturday Night
The Jaguar softball team swept their two games on Friday in the Gulf Coast Classic in Gulfport, Mississippi.
Farish Beard and Hannah Campbell both earned wins with Chloe Rathburn and Emily Messer supplying two RBI each in wins over Ohio University and Nicholls State.
Beard (7-1) struck out 12 Ohio University batters and walked one in a 3-0 win over the Bobcats. Then Campbell (4-0) struck out nine with no walks in a 2-1 win over Nicholls State. Both Beard and Campbell allowed one hit each as the Jags out hit their opponents 10-2 combined on Friday.
Rathburn went 3-for-6 with two RBI and a solo home run to give the Jags the lead against Ohio University. Messer’s two RBI, which scored Taylor Rodgers and Alex Breeden, extended the Jaguar lead to 3-0.
Stephanie Pilkington scored both of the Jaguars runs against Nicholls State in the night cap. She went 2-for-4 with a team-leading third triple of the season. Freshman Amanda Minahan went 2-for-3 with an RBI double to help lead the Jaguars to the win.
The #14 ranked South Alabama Jaguars (13-1) will play two games today. Their first is against UT-San Antonio at 2pm. Then they have a top-15 clash against #12 Baylor at 8pm in the nightcap.