Jaguar women’s basketball team gains five transfers

By Shelbie Summerlin | Sports writer

New Augusta University women’s basketball coach Celeste Stewart took advantage of the transfer portal this past summer and added five new players to her roster for this upcoming season.

“Championship mentality is huge,” said Stewart. “The players that we brought in this year, they’ve won at some level, and that was an emphasis for us, to have players that have a winner’s mentality because when you have that, the other stuff starts to fall together.”

Stewart’s new women have quality strengths to help her returners on the court this season.

“Our post presence with Yamani Paul and Malia Grace, being able to defend in the post really well,” said Stewart. “Rebounding is another emphasis. Being able to score around the basket. Finishing through contact. We also have some other players in the post that can stretch the floor, so possibly being able to shoot that outside jump shot.”

There are new valuable players in the guard positions as well.

“I look forward to having our incoming guards bring intensity defensively, being aggressive on the offensive end, being able to be in attack mode in transition by putting stress on the other team's defense,” said Stewart.

Stewart knows her team will have each other’s back and do the hard work.

“I look forward to us playing for each other,” said Stewart. “We have this concept this year of ‘hold the rope’ and everybody doing their part, making sure that we’re holding each other accountable.”

The end result is still the same as every year before Stewart was made AU’s new women’s basketball head coach.

“Championships is the goal, that expectation hasn’t changed.”

Stewart is excited to see what her team can do this season.

“I feel like we have a team that has a lot of potential to do great things,” said Stewart. “We just gotta put it together.”

The Jaguars will open on Nov. 11 against Barton. The game will be played in Milledgeville.

Player/Previous School

Randi Neal: Johnson C. Smith

Yamani Paul: Kennesaw State

Brianna Mills: Union County College

Jenna Wooten: Spartanburg Methodist College

Malia Grace: Alabama State

Note: At the top of the page, the AU women’s basketball takes part in the 9/11 memorial events on campus recently. (photo by Celeste Stewart, special to the Bell Ringer)

Contact Shelbie Summerlin at SSUMMERLIN@augusta.edu.