After comingfrom behind seven points Southern University had a clean slate going intohalftime tied 24-24 against the University of South Alabama.
Only thing wasSouthern’s 6’4” center Fredrieka Lewis had only shot the ball three times andscored once. It came back to hauntthem.
South Alabama(2-3) toppled 54-43 over Southern (1-3) in the F.G. Clark Activity CenterThursday night.
“The biggestthing is we got to get the ball on the block and we didn’t stick to our gameplan,” said Southern head coach Sandy Pugh. “Our game plan was to get the ballon the block to Fed and get some high percentage shots executing the game, butwe didn’t do that at all.”
Southern made13-of-54 shots from the field. Lewis went 1-of-5 from the field and made half of her eight free throwsto finish with a mere six points. Jag’s junior shooting guard Rolanda Monroe had a game high 16 points,six rebounds and three assists.
“Ourconcentration was to make it difficult for her (Lewis),” said South Alabamahead coach Rick Pietri. “We knewMonroe was going to get hers because she’s going to shoot enough, she’s goingto get her opportunity. Ourconcentration was to get it from the inside to the outside and we worked on that.We tried to execute that. Sometimes we did and sometimes we didn’t, but we did more than we didnot.”
The Jaguarstried changing the line up in the second half by removing Lewis and putting insophomore guard Adrian Blake and senior Ciara Shiggs, both quicker players.
Adrian totaledseven points in 20 minutes while Shiggs was 0-for-2. Sophomore forward AshleyBlake had 10 points and nine rebounds.
South Alabama,the defending Sun Belt West Division champions (2nd year straight) defensewouldn’t let up and they increased the score to as much as 15 points with 8:31left to play.
The series isSouth Alabama 8, Southern, the defending Southwestern Athletic Conferencechampions 2.
“We knew whatthey were going to run,” Pugh said. ”They run it ’til the cows come home, they have been running it for thelast five years, they haven’t changed their offense. The same back cut, top cut, down screen they’ve been runningfive years and we were prepared for it, or so I thought.”
South Alabamahad two starters missing from the line-up. Senior guard Donyel Wheeler was out with a knee injury,screws were taken out earlier in the day. Sophomore forward Whitney Woodard was mending her left knee fromcomplications in the Alabama State game.
With two topplayers out, South Alabama guards senior Qiana Mitchell and junior JoAnnaWilliams took over, both scoring a team high, 12 points a piece.
“It’s a hugewin for us,” Pietri said, after recalling his team lost to Alabama State 57-52,Nov. 30 in overtime. “This is atremendous response from our women’s team to beat Southern, that was picked towin the SWAC and return to the NCAA tournament. We have a lot of pride in the fact that we were able to getthis win.”
