The Southern University Lady Jaguars came into their most recent game with numerous positives to focus on. The Lady Jags were coming in off a massive win against the former #1 team in the conference, the Texas Southern Lady Tigers, 63-53. However, another conference foe was on their agenda—the Prairie View Lady Panthers. Historically, the Lady Jags have dominated games against this unit, winning the last five games, including a regular season series sweep last year. The Lady Jags were looking to get 2 straight regular season series victories and extend their winning streak to 6 against the Lady Panthers.
The Lady Jags dominated the first half, especially the first quarter, outscoring the Lady Panthers 25-6. The Lady Jags’ defense was aggressive from the beginning, and they did not allow the Lady Panthers to score into double digits until halfway in the second quarter. The halftime score swung in the Lady Jags’ favor, with them leading 36-13. Senior guard Aniyah Gourdine and graduate guard DaKiyah Sanders each had 4 assists in the first half. The Lady Jags ‘ 2nd leading scoring on the season, senior guard Soniyah Reed, scored 15 points on 50 percent shooting from the field and 75 percent from 3-point range. Southern Univerity’s Women’s Basketball Head Coach Carlos Funchess provided his analysis on what led to the electric first half from Reed, “I thought the first half they kept giving Soniyah the shots. I mean, she is the 2nd leading scoring on the team, so she kept getting good looks, and if they are going to keep giving them to her, we’ll ride the hot hand, and that’s what we did- we rode her the first half.” The Lady Jags held the Prairie View offense to 27 percent from the field in the first half.
In the second half, dominance continued for the Lady Jags. The Lady Jags outscored the Lady Panthers 50-29 in the second half. However, Reed didn’t score as much in the 2nd half, but her teammates Gourdine, junior guard D’Shantae Edwards, and freshman guard Jocelyn Tate picked up the slack by scoring in the double digits. The Lady Jags would win by an impressive 44-point blowout 86-42. The Lady Jags never trailed the entire game. Also, the Lady Jags finished with 24 assists, 49 points from the bench, 4 double-digit scorers, and 32 points from Prairie View’s turnovers. Coach Funchess broke down the numbers and described if this was the Lady Jags’ most complete game of the season. “Offensively, we were pretty good. We had a couple of other good games. We’ve had some other good quarters at times, but just a complete game- I thought offensively, this was probably our most complete game.”
With the Lady Jags winning and Grambling upsetting the Texas Southern Lady Tigers, the Lady Jags are now in first place in the SWAC women’s standing, controlling their destiny for the #1 seed in the SWAC tournament. The Southern Lady Jags’ next game will be against Grambling State Lady Tigers on Saturday, February 22nd at 2 PM, at Frederick C. Hobdy Assembly Center in Grambling, LA.
