JACKSONVILLE – Jacksonville State women's basketball team won their first official game at the Pete Mathews Coliseum of the 2024-25 season on Saturday afternoon. The Gamecocks were able to defeat Southern Utah 77-58 thanks in large part to a balanced offensive attack.
Jax State improves to 1-1 on the year, while the loss drops Southern Utah to 0-2. On top of getting the win Saturday, head coach Rick Pietri remains unbeaten in home openers since taking of the program in the 2013-14 season.
"I think we did some really good things; I think there's some things that I was disappointed in," Pietri said. "We'll deal with those and that's what film's for, to show them. I think that, listen, this is a team that we just faced that plays a lot of man-to-man. Honestly, we didn't spend on zone offense. We did in preparation for Arizona State, we didn't spend any time working on our zone offense in preparation for this game and I think our kids did a pretty good job executing what we want them to do in our zone offense because they played a zone for well over half of the game."
Elsie Harris was had a team-high 13 points in the game on 5-8 shooting from the field and a perfect 3-3 from three-point range.
Asia Barclay added 12 points and led the squad in rebounds with seven.
Clara Gonzalez Planella and
Mya Barnes both added 11 points, respectively. Barnes had a perfect afternoon shooting going 4-4 from the field and 3-3 from deep.
The Gamecocks dominated the first quarter, holding the Thunderbirds to seven points and only 16.7% shooting from both the field and three. Jax State meanwhile poured in 19 points on 44.4% shooting and 30% from three.
Southern Utah cut it to a 34-25 Jax State lead after the second quarter of action. In the second, the Gamecocks cooled off a bit only making 5-15 attempts from the field. They continued to shoot well from three-point range in the second making 37.5% of their tries.
Coming out of the halftime break, Jax State only improved their efficiency making shots as they made 44.4% of their field goals and 45.5% of their three-pointers. The Gamecocks also stepped up their game defensively in the third by holding the Thunderbirds to 25% shooting from range. At the end of three, Jax State led 55-43.
In the final 10 minutes of action, Jax State began to pour it on the visitors from Southern Utah. The Gamecocks were able to make 9-18 shots from the field and drained 2-4 shots from three. The Red-and-White also continued to shutdown the Thunderbirds' offensive gameplan as they held the opposition to 7-17 shooting and did not allow a three point make on five attempts.
Overall, Jax State shot 43.5% from the field in the game and made 13-33 three-point shots. One of the biggest benefactors for the Gamecocks was the production they got off the bench as 51 of the 77 total points came from nonstarters.
"Ultimately, we were able to get ourselves some good looks from the arc," Pietri added. "In the second half, we didn't shoot it great in the first half, we didn't shoot it terribly, but in the second half we really shot it well."
Other highlight performances include
Kyera Thornsbury's six points on a perfect 3-3 from the field and
Brooklyn McDaniel doing a little of everything as she scored four points, grabbed six rebounds, and led the Gamecocks with four assists.
Jax State's next game up will be at South Carolina State on Friday, Nov. 6 at 6 p.m. central, 7 p.m. eastern.
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