JACKSONVILLE – Jacksonville State's women's basketball team will open the 2022-23 regular season at home on Tuesday morning in an exhibition game with Montevallo.
 
The Division II Falcons will make the trip from Shelby County for a lunchtime Education Day Game duel at Pete Mathews Coliseum. Tip-off is slated for 11:30 a.m. in Jacksonville. That intrastate matchup will be JSU's final tune-up before regular season play begins versus Shorter on Nov. 7.
 
"The exhibition game, for as long as I've been around, has always been treated as a dress rehearsal," Jacksonville State head coach Rick Pietri said. "We do a number of things in preparation for this game that are season-like. This is the first time that we do full preparation for an opponent as we would for a regular season game, which changes the structure of our practices. Montevallo had a lot of valuable pieces matriculate out of their program after last year, and they have a bunch of new pieces. In the early games you're always flying a little bit blind because your preparation is based on past performance and what they've done in the past.
 
"The biggest, most valuable part of an exhibition game is going through an entire ritual from the practices leading up to, to the shoot-around, to the way we administer pregame, to the game itself; just going through that exercise before we do it in a game that counts," Pietri said.
 
The Gamecocks are coming off their most successful season in the program's Division I history. Jacksonville State finished the 2021-22 campaign with a 24-8 overall record. Pietri's squad was named ASUN West Division Champions after posting a 13-3 league record, and made a run to the conference tournament title game, where they fell to a Top 25 Florida Gulf Coast squad. Jax State then earned an invite to the WNIT, marking the program's first Division I postseason tournament appearance.
 
Pietri, JSU's all-time winningest head coach, is now entering year no. 10 in Calhoun County and returns a plethora of production from last season's historic squad. Preseason All-ASUN performers Imari Martin and NeKiyah Thompson are back after leading the Gamecocks with 10.6 points and 3.3 assists per game respectively.
 
The two electrifying guards join a strong class of upperclassmen including fifth-years Shawnta Shaw and Kyra Williams, graduate Kennedy Gavin, and junior Keiara Griffin. Also returning are sophomores Bre'Anna Rhodes and Shaquice May. Each returning contributor saw plenty of playing time in 2021-22 and will fight for more opportunities on the floor early this year.
 
Jacksonville State netted a solid recruiting class in the offseason and will add those pieces to the mix. Incoming Gamecocks include redshirt junior Masengo Mutanda, a transfer from Northwest Florida State, Anniston High School alum Kiana Montgomery- who just concluded her junior college career at Shelton State- and guard Eden Sample, who transferred in from Old Dominion. Two freshmen are on the roster this season as well in Greece native Evelina Davlakou and Cleburne County High School product Brooklyn McDaniel.
 
"I would just like to see us compete and play at a high level," Pietri said. "In our closed scrimmage that we had, we came out and we didn't compete at a high level at the onset. I'd like to see us show that we're capable of competing for 40 minutes. Really, for me, that's the thing I want to see the most, is that we're able to and willing to compete for 40 minutes."
 
Admission to Tuesday's mid-day Education Day Game is free of charge. To purchase tickets to regular season games or season ticket packages, call JSU's Ticket Office at 256-782-8499 (TIXX) or visit JSUGamecockSports.com.
 
"I think that the environment is always great when you have all the kids here for Education Day because the kids are loud, and they're enthusiastic, and it can be very uplifting for our players to compete in that kind of an environment," Pietri said. "Anybody in the community who can make it out for this lunch-hour game, I think they'll enjoy the environment as well. I'm looking forward to competing and seeing what the fruits of our labors that we've had for five weeks will yield."
 
Links to follow along with LiveStats will be provided at JSUGamecockSports.com. Additionally, score updates will be posted on JSU women's basketball's Twitter account (@JSUGamecocksWBB).
 
To stay up-to-date with the Gamecocks, be sure to follow their Facebook (Jacksonville State University Women's Basketball), Twitter, and Instagram (@JSUGamecocksWBB) accounts.