Southern wins despite depth issues

Southern women’s basketball team catapults into the Southwestern Athletic Conference after an 11 game win streak awarded since early in the season after their three game win streak following the Mardi Gras Holiday.
Southern (14-10, 12-2) routed a large margin win of 72-47 on Valentine’s Day after defeating Arkansas-Pine Bluff, and on Lundi Gras, Southern sprouted a close win against Mississippi Valley, 59-50. Southern prides themselves in early leads to capture wins against other teams. The first half initiates quick responses for the Lady Jags.
On Saturday, February 21 against Alabama A&M at home in F.G. Clark Activity Center drafted low energy in the beginning of the game until a personal foul call against freshman starting forward, Briana Green early in the second half. This became a prime catalyst for their 84-53 win against the Bulldogs.
Green went to the bench for 10 minutes after committing a personal and technical foul which was her last foul to be made before disqualification during a tussle for a loose ball. This incident caused three of her teammates off of the bench, causing their ejections.
The second half barely crest into two minutes when green and Alganese Gatson drove to the floor after a loose ball and the two tangled and had to be separated by teammates to cool their heads.
Jadea Brundidge, Shaquandria Litmon and Keonia Parrish rushed to the court from Southern’s bench, which is an automatic cause for ejection. This made the depth chart smaller and stigmatic switch-ins few and far in between.
After the incident, senior guard Kendra Coleman rallied the team and said, “I just told them to get in, let’s get back focused. Don’t worry about it because it’s over.”
Although this didn’t affect the sure lead while Southern led eleven points, 42-33 at halftime.
Southern coach Sandy Pugh believes in discipline and common decency as she said, “A couple of kids made a poor decision and they know better than that. It was a reactionary thing, but that can’t ever happen.”
Senior power forward, Jasmine Jefferson attested to the fact that the ‘incident’ gave the team more motivation.
“We should have played like that at the beginning of the half but I guess the ejections gave us a little more motivation. We just wanted to finish the game off and coach said we just had to suck it up and play with that guys we have,” said Jefferson.
She continued to say, “It’s a game of basketball and we have to focus and players will come hard and we need to be the bigger team and not come out with scrambles.”
Green returned to gameplay with 7:26 remaining in the second half.
“When she went back in, I told her it was over and done with,” said Coleman, “Just get focused because we need buckets from you and she agreed with me.”
Green finished the game with 16 points and 10 rebounds for a double-double performance within 18 minutes of gameplay. Britney Washington scored 17 points from the bench. Coleman had 16 points and 5 assists and Jefferson had 15 points and 8 rebounds.
Britteny Strickland led the Lady Bulldogs with 16 points and seven rebounds to try and capsize Southern defense. Jaylan Sowden scored 12 points.
A&M chipped away 11-17 free throws while Southern scored 50 percent with 1-2 free throws.