Jags Still Holding Onto Postseason Baseball Hopes
While the Jags lost five of the last six games of the season, at least they sent the seniors out on a winning note against Troy. After dropping the first two games at home, the Jags won 11-10 on Saturday’s Senior Day.
The season ending losing streak took the Jags from first place to fifth place and will open the Sun Belt Tournament against fourth seeded Florida International on Wednesday at 9am. FIU started the Jaguars losing streak with a three game sweep in Miami.
However, an interesting note about this is that the last time the Jaguars won the Sun Belt Tournament in 2005 the Jaguars lost five of their last six regular season games.
The Jags need to win the SBC Tournament in order to get a bid to the NCAA Tournament.
The eight participants in the Tournament in order of their seeding are: 1) Florida Atlantic, 2) Lousiana-Lafayette, 3) Middle Tennessee, 4) Florida International, 5) South Alabama, 6) Troy, 7) Arkansas State and 8) Western Kentucky. As usual with baseball tournaments, this is a double elimination tournament.
Go Jags!
Jags Baseball Get Swept Out Of First Place
South Alabama‘s baseball team tumbled down the Sun Belt standings over the weekend when they were swept by Florida International in their weekend series.
South Alabama fell to 30-23 for the season and 16-11 in the Sun Belt while FIU improved to 30-20 overall and 16-11 in the Sun Belt. The Jags fell to 5th place in the Sun Belt, a full three games behind Florida Atlantic who is in first place. The full Sun Belt rankings are: FAU (19-8), ULL (18-9), MTSU (17-10), FIU (16-11), USA (16-11), ASU (15-12), Troy (14-13), WKU (14-13), UALR (10-15), ULM (7-20) and UNO (2-26).
The Jags have a three game home stand against Troy to end the season, while FAU’s regular season has concluded. While the Jags have a chance to improve their SBC tournament ranking, but the other teams the Jags need to leap-from also play lower ranked teams. Another weekend sweep would be disastrous for the Jags.
So come out to Stanky Field and support the Jags during this pivotal weekend series as they try to make the NCAA Tournament.
Jags Baseball Surrender First Place To Florida Atlantic
The Jags fell to second place in the Sun Belt after this past weekend’s three game series at Stanky Field. After falling 7-2 to FAU on Friday night, the Jags came from behind on Saturday night to win 6-5 on a walk-off balk in the 9th inning.
On Sunday afternoon, the Jags lost 6-3 to FAU after a squandering a 3-0 lead in the top of the eighth inning. The Jags allowed five runs on six hits in the top of the eighth, including back-to-back home runs to take the lead 5-3. FAU added an insurance run in the top of the ninth.
So the Jags went into the weekend with a one game lead over FAU but leave the weekend trailing by one game. FAU improves to 18-8 in the Sun Belt and 30-17 for the season while the Jags fall to 16-7 in the Sun Belt and 29-19 on the season.
The Jags still control their own fate though with two more Sun Belt series left in the regular season while FAU only has one series left against FIU.
The Jags have their last non-conference game tomorrow night at Stanky Field when they host #18 ranked Auburn University then they will travel to FIU for a three game weekend series followed by a Thursday through Saturday series at Stanky Field hosting Troy University to end the regular season.
Jaguars Baseball First Place In SBC
The Jaguars baseball team is sitting in first place in the Sunbelt. They have a half game lead over second place Florida Atlantic and a game and a half lead on third place MTSU.
With three remaining Sunbelt conference series left in the season. Their first series will be hosting Florida Atlantic after the Jags off week. The following weekend is a travel to Florida International then the season ending series against Troy in Mobile.
However, when the regular season ends it will only be the beginning for the Jags. In order to get into the College Baseball World Series, Coach Kittrell feels that the Jags need to win conference tournament. Kittrell says that even though the Sunbelt is currently the 5th ranked conference in the nation, it does not guarantee that two or more teams could make the College World Series. The Jags do not want to leave it up to chance, for good reason.
Jags Brownell Has Run In With Police
South Alabama has finished it’s second spring practice heading into this second season of football but it didn’t take long for their instance of a player having a run in with the police.
Starting Safety Zach Brownell was arrested Thursday morning on 24 charges. The 19-year old player damaged 22 vehicles in the Delta parking lot on campus. The charges break down into 22 counts of criminal mischief, public intoxication and disorderly conduct.
According to campus police, Brownell was drinking when he pulled or broke off mirrors from the vehicles in the parking lot. They also said that “three or four” vehicles had broken windows. They described the damage done as “small-time vandalism to each car,” for the most part.
Brownell even damaged a vehicle of Chris Pugh, a teammate of his. Norm Gamache said university police were called to the Delta parking lot after 3am on a report of someone damaging vehicles where they arrested Brownell.
South Alabama Athletic Director Dr. Joel Erdmann said, “I think all of our programs and all of our coaches and the entire department is very centered on basic principles of tremendous citizenship and graduation and competing to the best of our ability. All of our student athletes and everybody in our department is very sensitive to that and so we do examine things like this very deeply and take it very seriously.”
Keith Ayers said that Brownell would not be suspended from classes. In an incident like this he is subject to a nonacademic conduct review. If the crime committed is bad enough, then the student could be subject to dismissal from the university.
Brownell is a native of Prattville, Alabama and started all seven games at Safety in the inaugural season for South Alabama. He led the team with five interceptions and was second on the team with 27 tackles. While in high school, Brownell played on three state championship teams and partcipated in the Alabama-Mississippi All-Star Classic.
Brownell was placed in the Mobile Metro jail and released on Thursday afternoon on a $17,000 bail.
Brownell has been indefinitely suspended from the team pending an investigation.
Jaguar Football Rings
The Jaguar Football team was presented with their rings recently. They commemorated the school going undefeated in its inaugural season. They are diamond encrusted with the familiar Jaguar sports logo, their record and the players name, number and position.
Chris Pugh, a player from my hometown, graciously gave Thunderjags.com permission to post the photos of his ring on our website.
April 12th Vanguard Sports Poll
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Let your vote be heard by posting below. The best comment will be appearing in the April 12th issue of The Vanguard.
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As always, thanks for visiting and also for voting. Please continue reading the Vanguard and Thunderjags.com.
April 5th Vanguard Poll Question
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Let your vote be heard by posting below. The best comment will be appearing in the April 5th issue of The Vanguard.
If you wish to be published in the paper, please leave your first name and which class year you represent.
As always, thanks for visiting and also for voting. Please continue reading the Vanguard and Thunderjags.com.
Jags Finish Out Series with ULL And Visit #21 SLU
The Jags won the final game of their series against Louisiana-Lafayette on Sunday to win the series 2-1 but it took extra innings to do so. In the bottom of the 13th inning the Jags plated a run win 12-11.
Jag second baseman Zach Grichor led off the inning with a double through the left side of the diamond. He then scored the game winning run when Chase Traffica’s pitch passed the catcher and allowed Zach to score.
Then on Wednesday the Jags traveled to Hammond, LA to take on #21 Southeastern Louisiana. SLU took the lead in their half of the 1st inning with two runs. In the 3rd inning, the Jags cut the lead in half but their inning saw the Jags score four runs to take a 5-2 lead. Then in the bottom half of the inning, SLU scored one to cut the lead to two runs.
The Jags are now 15-9 on the season and 5-1 in the Sun Belt. The Jags will play a three game, weekend series in Murfreesboro, Tennessee to take on the Blue Raiders of Middle Tennessee State.
Jaguars Baseball Early Season Review
The Jags Baseball team started the season with with some big games against teams like Alabama, Tulane and Siena before they opened up their conference schedule.
They had chances against Alabama to win both games before the first one in Tuscaloosa got out of hand, but the next day in Mobile, they kept it much closer yet still fell in the end.
Their match-up against Mississippi State had to be rescheduled due to weather. The Jags then defeated Tulane at Stanky field and took two of three against Siena also at Stanky field.
These early season games put the Jags record at 8-5 as they started Sun Belt play. Their first opponent came on the road in Little Rock, Arkansas against UALR. The Jags swept the three game weekend series.
They then stepped back out of Sun Belt play to face Memphis in Tennessee where they split the two game series.
This weekend the Jags opened up their Sun Belt home schedule against Louisiana-Lafayette and have split the first two games with ULL winning on Friday night and the Jags winning last nights showdown. The final game of this weekends series will begin at 1pm today with the Jags hoping to run their record to 14-8 on the season.
The remainder of the Jags season will continue to have out of conference foes sprinkled between three game weekend series. They have some good schools on the list too such as Southern Miss, Auburn and Nicholls State.
But one of the big stories of the season so far happened during the UALR series when long time coach Steve Kittrell recorded his 1,000th win at South Alabama.
South Alabama is sitting in a good spot early in the Sun Belt season. They have a 4-1 record and seem to be growing more consistent. The major factor the rest of the season will be the pitching from the bullpen. If the starters can stay out of trouble early and go deep into the games, the Jags have a much better chance at the Sun Belt title this season.