Maroon & Gold Weekly Wrap-Up

Maroon & Gold Weekly Wrap-Up:

Men & Women’s Basketball, Baseball & Volleyball

Bobcats upset by Jaguars in crucial game

MOBILE, Ala. – The Texas State men’s basketball team (23-6, 12-4 Sun Belt) had no answer for the South Alabama Jaguars (14-15, 7-9 Sun Belt) hot shooting as they fell 77-63 at the Mitchell Center. The Jaguars took control of the game with a 27-3 run across both halves to knock off the Bobcats on their senior night.

“I don’t understand why we didn’t come out with the fire in our belly that I expected them to have,” said head coach Danny Kaspar. “We played a decent first half, but our defense was not there today. South Alabama played harder than we did.”

Senior forward Alex Peacock set a new season-high with 20 points and led the Bobcats in rebounding for the 10th time this year with six boards. Senior guard Tre’Larenz Nottingham finished with 16 points in roughly 30 minutes while junior guard Jaylen Shead rounded out the double-digit scorers with 10 points and recorded seven assists. Overall, the team shot 44.6 percent from the field but shot 20 percent (5-of-20) from 3-point range in the loss.

Junior Josh Ajayi led the Jags with 20 points on 8-of-9 shooting from the floor and tallied two steals. Senior Rodrick Sikes was right behind him with 18 points with 15 of those points coming from behind-the-arc, while graduate Kory Holden and junior guard Herb McGee both turned in 15 points. USA’s 63 percent shooting (27-of-43) and 59 percent clip from deep (10-of-17) was by far the best shooting clinic of any TXST opponent this season.

Neither team could find a rhythm or gain an advantage for the majority of the first half that featured six ties and 13 lead changes. The Jaguars got hot in the final three minutes, however, and ended the half on a 7-0 run with Holden scoring five of those points alone. Despite shooting 70 percent from the floor (14-of-20) and 50 percent from three (4-of-8), South Alabama went into halftime with just a four-point, 35-31 lead over the Bobcats.

Texas State struggled out of the break and South Alabama continued to click on all cylinders as they opened the second half with a 14-0 run to extend their lead to 49-31. The shooting woes dragged on for the Bobcats until Shead scored the first field goal for the visiting team at the 12:32 mark, ending the 20-3 Jag attack. Shead’s bucket ignited a Bobcat 9-2 run, but the Jaguars ripped off another 14-6 stretch, giving them a 71-49 lead, the largest of the night. The Bobcats put together a pair of sporadic runs of 8-0 and 6-0, respectively, to get the deficit down to 10 points but it was too late as USA put them away by shooting 4-of-4 from the charity stripe in garbage time to secure the victory.

“I am disappointed in how we performed with so much on the line,” Kaspar noted. “The guys know what is at stake. We have to be mature about what is on the line and follow our system. A system that has got us to a 12-5 conference record which means we have to defend the basketball. They [South Alabama] shot 63 percent today on us. We can’t win games letting opponents shoot 63 percent. We did not look like the Texas State team that won 23 games. This was our most disappointing defeat of the year and with so much at stake, I am very frustrated with our effort and the outcome of the game.”

Texas State will end the regular season on March 9 at UT Arlington. With a win, the Bobcats can still claim a share of the league’s regular season championship title.

INSIDE THE BOX SCORE 

• Texas State’ Jaylen Shead logged his 14th game this season with five or more assists and his seventh with seven or more helpers.
• The Bobcats outscored the Jaguars 36-32 in the paint and dominated them in bench scoring 14-1.
• TXST outrebounded USA 28-24 in rebounds, including a 14-6 margin on the offensive glass. The Bobcats dropped their fifth game this season (19-5) and third game in conference (10-3) when outrebounding their opponent.
• USA’s Rodrick Sikes matched TXST with five made 3-point field goals.
• Junior guard Nijal Pearson scored one point and was 0-of-8 from the floor. In 30 game played this year, Pearson has been held under 10 points five times and none under six points prior to this game.

Texas State earns critical victory, sinks South Alabama 77-45

SAN MARCOS, Texas – The Texas State women’s basketball team (14-15, 9-8 Sun Belt) took care of business against a short-handed South Alabama (19-8, 8-8 Sun Belt) team by a final score of 77-45. The victory keeps the Bobcats in play for either the fifth or sixth seed and first-round bye that comes with the seed in the 2019 Sun Belt Conference Championship.

“Our team did a great job on the defensive end to make it difficult for them to get many easy looks,” head coach Zenarae Antoine said. “We limited easy touches down in the post, while always avoiding the comfortable looks from the 3-point line that we gave up against Troy.”

Senior guard Toshua Leavitt caught fire from behind the 3-point line and finished with a game-high 20 points. She buried 6-of-9 attempts from deep and dished out five assists. Freshman center Jaeda Reed played her best game as a Bobcat, scoring 12 points on 4-of-6 shooting and pulling down eight rebounds. Freshman forward Da’Nasia Hood scored 11 points in 19 minutes of run off the bench. Texas State has registered at least three double-figure scorers in eight-straight games.

As a team, Texas State dominated the glass. South Alabama, one of the Sun Belt Conference’s elite rebounding groups, grabbed only 33 rebounds in the loss. The Bobcats ripped down 43 boards, including 10 from junior forward Jazza Johns.

Sophomore center Antoinette Lewis paced the Jaguars on the offensive end of the floor with 13 points and 10 rebounds. She was the only USA player to record double-digit points.

After taking a 31-27 lead into the halftime break, Texas State blitzed South Alabama in both the third and fourth quarters. The Bobcats outscored the Jaguars, 46-18, over the final 20 minutes of play.

Hood ignited an 11-0 run with back-to-back jumpers in the middle of the third quarter. Both buckets came off pick-and-pop assists from freshman point guard Kennedy Taylor. Leavitt drained a pair of deep 3-pointers, including a heat-check from nearly 30-feet out, to force USA into a timeout.

From the 1:09 mark in the third quarter until the 6:15 mark in the fourth frame, Texas State went on another extended run to put the game away. This run, 15-0, was an inside-out effort. TXST found buckets from three different forwards in the paint and three separate players from behind the arc during the run to bury South Alabama.

Texas State led by as many as 33 points late in the fourth quarter before the game settled at the final of 77-45.

Up next, Texas State will close out the 2018-19 regular season with a clash against in-state rival UT Arlington on March 9. The game will be aired on ESPN+ and will tip at 2 p.m. from Strahan Arena. The Bobcats will honor the senior class following the game as part of the Senior Day festivities.

Bobcats conquer Trojans for record-setting 23 regular season wins

TROY, Ala. – The Texas State men’s basketball team (23-6, 12-4 Sun Belt) took care of Troy (11-16, 4-11) 58-44 Thursday night at Trojan Arena. The win gives the program its 23rd regular season victory, setting a new single-season mark for Texas State in the Division I era.

“I thought we started slow but picked it up,” said head coach Danny Kaspar. “I thought that our defense was good the whole game, but we had too many turnovers. We will have to play better if we want to win out.”

As a unit, the Bobcats shot 40.4 percent from the floor (19-of-47) while holding the Trojans to a 30 percent clip (15-of-50). The visiting club also dominated their opponent in bench scoring (22-3), points in the paint (22-12) and outworked them on the boards, 37-27.

Junior guard Nijal Pearson finished with a game-high 15 points and knocked down three 3-pointers to tie Brady Richeson (1999-2003) for No. 2 all-time with 172 career made 3-point field goals. Pearson also had a team-high six rebounds and recorded one steal.

True freshman Mason Harrell tallied a career-high 14 points on 4-of-6 shooting from the floor and led the team with four assists.

“I thought Mason [Harrell] was the key to our victory tonight,” Kaspar declared. “He really ran the team in Jaylen’s [Shead] absence and did a fantastic job both in terms of running the team and in scoring points.”

Senior forward Alex Hicks was the only Trojan to reach double figures in scoring with 13 points and registered a game-high eight rebounds. He also led the team with three turnovers.

Troy started the first half hot by shooting a perfect 3-of-3 from behind-the-arc to take a 9-4 lead. However, the Bobcats withstood the early storm and compiled an 8-0 run to take the lead thanks to Pearson’s triple from the left wing. The visitor’s run expanded, 20-5 including another 8-0 run to end the frame and go into the intermission with a 30-21 advantage.

Both teams struggled out of the gates to begin the second half, but Harrel’s 3-pointer followed by Pearson’s back-to-back treys kick-started what would be a Bobcat 15-2 run to extend their lead 52-35 with 7:44 left in the contest. Troy never bounced back, pulling within only 12 points as Texas State cruised to victory to remain atop the Sun Belt Conference.

“We had four guys miss two practices due to illness this week, so I know that they didn’t quite have it tonight and yet we were still able to win,” Kaspar stated. I am proud that we fought through the adversities to pick up this victory tonight.”

Texas State will conclude the weekend with a 6 p.m. tip-off on March 2 at South Alabama before wrapping up the regular season on March 9 at UT Arlington.

INSIDE THE BOX SCORE 

• Texas State improves to 16-1 this year and 7-1 in conference play when leading after the first half.
• The Bobcats are 7-1 this year when shooting between 40-49 percent from the floor.
• TXST shot 82.4 percent (14-of-17) from the charity stripe, marking the fifth consecutive game the Bobcats have shot 80 percent or better from the line.
• The 14-point win vs. Troy is the 13th double-digit victory this season for the Bobcats and improved their record to 10-3 in road games this year.
• Harrell was a perfect 4-of-4 from the stripe.
• Eric Terry was one point shy of recording his fourth consecutive double-digit scoring performance.

Bobcats tumble against Trojans, 82-63

SAN MARCOS, Texas – The Texas State women’s basketball team (13-15, 8-8 Sun Belt) could not keep up with the Troy Trojans (20-6, 11-4 Sun Belt) in an 82-63 setback on Thursday afternoon at Strahan Arena in front of a raucous Kid’s Game crowd of 3,728 fans.

The loss snapped Texas State’s conference-best four-game winning streak and dropped the Bobcats a half game behind both Coastal Carolina and Appalachian State for the sixth spot in the Sun Belt standings.

“It was that fourth quarter that really crushed us,” head coach Zenarae Antoine said. “We were chipping away and [Tyra Johnson] hit a really tough 3-pointer. The mental block of overcoming that hump was pretty tough for us.”

For the seventh-consecutive ballgame, Texas State has at least three players reach double figures in the scoring column. Freshman guard Kennedy Taylor led the charge with 16 points and four assists. She converted 7-of-10 attempts from the free throw line. Junior guard Brooke Holle scored 12 points with 10 coming in the opening quarter of the game. Senior guard Toshua Leavitt scored 11 points and handed out a game-high eight helpers. Junior forward Jazza Johns reached double-figures for the third-straight game with 11 points and six rebounds in a starting role.

Troy buried 13-of-26 (50.0 percent) attempts from behind the 3-point line. The total tied a season-high for 3-pointers given up in a single-game this season for Texas State. Junior guard Harriet Winchester made 6-of-9 tries from deep and finished with a game-high 18 points. Junior guard Jasmine LeBlanc scored 17 points, while junior guard Tyra Johnson added 11.

Troy jumped out to an electric start, scoring the first eight points of the game and forced Texas State to burn a timeout just 1:49 into the contest.

The Bobcats rebounded to score 14 of the next 17 points of the game to claim the lead. Holle was the catalyst for the run as she made a pair of transition triples. TXST led for the final time at 20-18 with 1:10 left in the first. Johnson hit a 3-pointer with 22 seconds remaining in the frame to help Troy close the quarter on a mini 5-0 run to regain the lead at 23-20. Winchester hit her fourth 3-pointer of the first half to close out the second quarter and give the Trojans a 10-point advantage at the break, 45-35.

The frantic pace of the game worked in the favor of the home team for a brief stretch in the third quarter. Texas State trimmed a 12-point lead down to six after fast break layups on three-straight possessions. With the Trojan lead still at six, Johnson nailed a contested 3-pointer from the left wing with six seconds left on the clock. The shot seemed to be the dagger as Texas State was never able to recover.

Troy mounted a double-digit lead early in the fourth quarter and never looked back. The lead ballooned to as many as 21 points before settling at the final of 82-63.

Up next, Texas State continues a three-game homestand. The Bobcats will host South Alabama (March 2), before closing the season against UT Arlington (March 9).