MOBILE, Ala. – After two successful seasons overseas, former South Alabama women’s basketball player Jessica Starling is scheduled to begin her third professional season in October. Starling – who signed at the beginning of August with Orda Brzeg of the Poland-PLKK league located in Brzeg, Poland – will open up the regular season on Oct. 1 versus Tecza-Leszno. The 26-game regular season is scheduled to run through March 17.
“As I begin another season, I realize the blessings that have been placed before me,” Starling said of the opportunity to continue her career. “The competition here is better than I have faced with my previous teams. The team and coaches are friendly and caring. This is the most professional team I have played on since I begun this journey across Europe. I am adjusting and transitioning quite well on the court, but the eating style has been a little more challenging. They eat significantly less than I am accustomed to eating.”
Starling and her teammates have been in camp since the end of August and throughout the preseason competition – which began earlier this month – she has averaged nine points, seven assists, nine rebounds per game.
“I really want to be a leader on the court for my team this season and help them reach the playoffs,” Starling mentioned of her goals for the upcoming season. “The competition in our league is tough as a number of WNBA players play here.”
Currently a total of seven WNBA players are listed on the 13 other team’s rosters, highlighted by Tulsa Shock member and former Sun Belt Conference Player of the Year Amber Holt from Middle Tennessee.
With just the top eight teams in the 14-team league reaching the playoffs, the addition of Starling should help Orda Brzeg - which went just 3-21 last season – get close to reaching the former Lady Jag’s postseason goal. Orda Brzeg will play 13 games prior to Christmas and then close out the season with the final 13 games after the holiday break.
Starling has already helped two clubs contend for titles in her brief pro career. Last season (2010-11), she played with Clube Amigos Do Basquete (CAB) Madiera of the Portuguese Basketball League where she helped lead CAB – the top seed in the PBL playoffs – to a 17-3 regular season record. CAB tied with AD Vagos, but held the tiebreaker between the two due to head-to-head victories to take the top seed. CAB advanced to the championship round of the playoffs before falling to Quinta in a best-of-five series.
While with CAB, the Tallahassee, Fla., native averaged 16.1 points per outing – second on the team – in 32.5 minutes of action. She knocked down 47.7 percent of her attempts from the field, including 31.5 percent from long range. The former Lady Jag posted double figures in 19 games for CAB, including nine with 20 or more points during the regular season. Starling also chipped in with 5.0 boards and averaged 3.1 steals per contest – second in the PBL – and led CAB with 3.2 apg, which ranked eighth in the league.
During her first professional season (2009-10), Starling was a member of Trocal Jedinstvo Tuzla of the Bosnia Division I Women’s League based in Tuzula, Bosnia. There, she averaged 18.2 points, five rebounds and just under six assists per game, while helping Jedinstvo finish second in the division.
Starling, who was a three-year member of the Lady Jag program (2006-09), led USA in scoring as a senior with 14.9 ppg, earning second-team all- Sun Belt honors. Along with Shakira Nettles, the duo became one of the most dangerous tandems in the SBC from beyond the arc and helped the Lady Jags knock down a school-record 239 three-pointers and reach the 20-win plateau for the second-straight year. Starling also made history herself, as she set a new single-season mark in treys with 77 - eclipsing the previous mark of 76 set by Joi Gopher during the 2001-02 season.
For more information about South Alabama athletics, check back with www.usajaguars.com. Season tickets for all Jaguar athletic events can be purchased by calling (251) 461-1USA (1872).
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