MOBILE, Ala. ? With a career-high 22 points Wednesday night, sophomore guard Shakira Nettles helped lead the Lady Jags to a 55-50 Sun Belt Conference victory over New Orleans at the Mitchell Center, securing an opening round home game in next week’s conference tournament. Heading into its final regular season game, USA sits in sixth place overall in the league and with a win over FIU and two Louisiana-Monroe losses over the next few days, the Lady Jags could climb as high as the fifth seed.
“We are tremendously relieved to know now that we don’t have to make any travel plans next week,” South Alabama head coach Rick Pietri said of securing the first round home game. “I thought at times tonight we looked really good. There were certain things that I wish we had done better, but for the most part, we were able to turn turnovers into points on the offensive end.”
USA (18-10, 9-8 SBC) will close out the regular season Saturday afternoon when the Lady Jags travel to take on Florida International at 4:15 (CT) at Pharmed Arena. The Privateers fall to 12-16 on the season and 6-11 in the conference with the loss.
Nettles led all scorers on the night and was 6-of-10 from the field and 9-of-12 from the free throw line in the win. She also chipped in with six rebounds for USA.
“Shakira (Nettles) really contributed tonight on both ends of the floor,” Pietri said of the sophomore’s performance. She did a nice job of guarding (Le’Della) English and finished plays around the goal on the offensive end. She played and excellent and complete game.”
Brittany Helm paced New Orleans with 13 points against the Jags.
Prior to the contest versus the Privateers, South Alabama honored seniors, Patriece Brunner, Monique Jones, Amanda Leonard and Jeanette Tucker.
Nettles came out and provided the early offense for the Lady Jags, recording 10 of South Alabama’s first 15 points to start the game. Siedah Banks later gave USA its largest lead of the half at 21-9 when the freshman nailed an 18-foot jumper from the left side at the 5:30 mark. New Orleans, however, answered right back with a 9-0 run of its own to trim the Privateer deficit to 21-18 with three minutes, 25 seconds left before the intermission. Talisha Young capped off the UNO spurt with two of her six first half points.
Karina Sproal and Nettles later ended the Privateer run with back-to-back treys with under three minutes to go and went back on top by double figures (28-18) after a Nettles free throw at the 1:31 mark. USA went on to take a 29-22 lead into the intermission.
In the second half, the Lady Privateers threatened, but every time UNO made a run, South Alabama had the answer. New Orleans came right out of the locker room and quickly pulled with in four at 29-25 after a Le’Della English lay up with 18 minutes, 19 seconds left on the clock. Nettles answered the English bucket with a lay up of her own a minute later and Leonard, playing her final regular season game at home, drained a trey from the right win to push the Jaguar advantage back out to nine (34-25). With just over 10 minutes left in regulation, Nettles put South Alabama back out in front by double figures (40-29) when she sank a pair of free throws. USA went on to take as much as a 12 point lead on a couple of occasions, the last coming at the 6:26 mark, but the Lady Privateers would not roll over and kept trying to chip away at the Jaguar lead. Jada Fazier brought UNO two within five in the final seconds with a three-pointer of her own, but South Alabama held on to take the five-point victory.
