By Leeroy Francis Jr. |Staff writer
The Augusta University men’s basketball team got back in the winner’s column with a victory over Georgia-Southwestern University 87-69 on Saturday, Jan. 20.Earlier, the AU women’s team fell to Georgia Southwestern by a 64-52 score.In the men’s contest, the opening half at Christenberry Fieldhouse was a good one for the Jags. The Jaguars shot 17 for 29 (58.6 percent) for one of their more efficient first halfs of shooting of the season. In the first half, the leading scorer for Augusta was Tamyrik Fields, who had 18 points going eight of 10 from the field and two of two from the free throw line playing 19 of the 20 minutes in the half. Fields, the senior from Augusta, led the Jags to a 42-28 bulge at halftime.The Jags carried their momentum into the second half to maintain their lead. However, Georgia Southwestern was not going down without a fight and used a zone press defensive scheme in the second half to try and slow down the Jaguars’ offense.The visiting Hurricanes, led by junior R.J. Sessions, fought back in the second half to cut the lead to eight with 5:39 left in the game, but in the last five minutes the Jags used good team defense to allow the visiting Hurricanes to score only eight points the remainder of the contest. GSW’s Sessions finished the game with 25 points, making 4-of-9 three-point tries.After scoring a career-high 33 points in the last game Jan. 17 against Francis Marion, Fields played lights-out again. The senior from Augusta had another career high with 34 points on 14-of-19 shooting, adding six rebounds and two assists as well.How much confidence could a win like this give Fields?“A lot, a whole lot; we just got an energy boost! Five-Hour Energy,” he said. “We are going to take it one game at a time, one day at a time, and one possession at a time, and then we will see what happens.”Indeed, the Jags seemed like a different team on Saturday. They shot a torrid 64.7 percent from the field for the game and outrebounded the Hurricanes 32-19. Three other Jags were also in double figures. Senior Kyle Doyle had 14 points and seven assists, Junior Deane Williams scored 13 points and six rebounds, and Junior Tyvez Monroe had 12 points and five rebounds. Junior Aaron Byrd ran the point and kept the Jaguars firing on all cylinders offensively throughout the game.AU Coach Dip Metress welcomed the relatively easy victory after the excruciating double-overtime loss to Francis Marion.“At shoot-around, I said we had to get out of our own little world,” the Jags’ coach said. “We haven’t played well at home. Sometimes people are looking at themselves like, ‘What am I doing wrong?’ We didn’t have that tonight. It was a good team win.”The Jaguars’ next game is against USC-Aiken on Wednesday, Jan. 24 at 7:30 p.m. in Aiken. With the win on Saturday, the Jags, who had lost four of their previous five (and all of those close), now sit 6-5 in the Peach Belt Conference and 9-8 overall. The Jaguars will look to continue the hot play against a Pacer team that also won on Saturday against Lander. With the loss, Georgia Southwestern is now 5-6 in the conference and 9-6 overall this season.In the women’s game, the Jaguars could not keep the lead they had after the first 10 minutes of the game. The Jags built a 17-11 lead, but the Hurricanes rallied and never gave the lead back. Augusta University junior Brianna Middleton led the way with 13 points and added seven rebounds in the contest. Senior Jahmia Bradley had 12 points, two rebounds, and an assist, while senior Cynara Pitt scored eight points and added 12 rebounds for the Jaguars.
The Jag women’s next game is also in Aiken vs. USC-Aiken on Wednesday, Jan. 24 at 5:30 p.m. The AU women are now 3-12 overall and 1-10 in the conference.Saturday was also Military Appreciate Day. This year the attendance was 788 patrons. At halftime, about a dozen young people took the Army oath.Contact Leeroy Francis at lfrancis@augusta.edu.