The SouthernUniversity Jaguar women’s basketball team will play an exhibition game withNAIA member Southern-New Orleans Friday at 5 p.m. in the F.G. Clark ActivityCenter.
Seven players,five of them starters, returned from last season’s Southwestern AthleticConference Championship team.
The Jaguarswent 17-13.
“Last year weplayed about two top 25 teams,” Southern head coach Sandy Pugh said. “This season we’re more focused onplaying more competitively. Last year we had to get to a certain point, and thebest way to do that is to play top competion. You just can’t play at the level of your competion. The last year was more about gettingthem to point ‘a’ to point ‘z’ as quickly as possible. This season we should becovering somewhere about ‘m’ or ‘n’ because we returned so many kids.”
The Jaguarswere voted by the SWAC head coaches and sports information directors to finishin first place in the SWAC for the 2004-’05 season. Southern won the 2003-2004 SWAC Basketball Tournament inMarch with a 68-61 victory over the Mississippi Valley State Devilettes.
Alabama Statewas predicted to finish second, followed by Alcorn State and then the GramblingState Tigers were slated to finish in fourth.
The Jaguarshave a strong veteran trio composed of junior shooting guard Rolanda Monroe(earned SWAC preseason first team honors), sophomore small forward Ashley Blake(named to the SWAC second team) and six-feet-four sophomore center FredreikaLewis (earned SWAC preseason first team honors) to help guide the fivenewcomers of the recruited class to the team. Monroe, the leading scorer, finished with 17.5 points and2.7 steals per game. While Blake,the leading rebounder, had 13.9 points and 8.7 rebounds per game and Lewisfinished with 11.2 points, 5.7 rebounds and 1.3 blocked shots.
Monroe willmove from shooting guard to point because of junior-college transfer TiffanyJones’ (sophomore, point guard) recent sprained ankle.
Of therecruits, true freshman Megan Berard from St. Martinville will take the outsideshooting role of senior Shere’ Cunningham and 6’1” junior Akia Harmon willhandle the inside game.
The seasonopener for the Jags will be against Northwestern State University (Pugh’s almamater) in Natchitoches at 6:30 p.m.
