The Alabama State women's basketball team arrived in Baton Rouge Sunday evening to take on the Jaguars of Southern University, Monday at 5:30 p.m. at the F.G. Clark Activity Center.
 
“Monday night's game is very important to us,” Coach Freda Freeman-Jackson said. “We must win in order to try and stay in the race for the SWAC Championship.  We can't afford to get behind because everybody else is winning especially the top teams. We are going to have to find a way to beat Southern.   It's going to be tough for us because we are going to be without our starting point guard. We are trying to figure out what we are going to need to do to win.”
 
Alabama State enters Monday's contest 6-9 overall and 3-3 in conference play.  They are coming off of a 56-49 loss to Alcorn State Saturday night.  In the game against Alcorn senior Jasmine Quinn led the Lady Hornets with 11 points. She was followed by sophomore Quentori Alford who scored 10 and pulled down nine rebounds.
 
The team is being led by a sea of freshman, three of which have been starting in the last five contests.  Danielle Gazaway and Kierra Paige are leading the team in scoring averaging 8.5 points per game a piece.  Durriya Shields is running the point with 25 assists.  Alford is holding down the center with 92 rebounds and is averaging 7.4 ppg. 
 
“After practice tonight I feel good about it,” said Freeman-Jackson.   We are just trying to patch it together and we are going to have to see who will be able to play the point the best.   We have three freshmen that will be rotating in and out of that position.  I feel if we play solid defense we will be able to win.”
 
Southern is entering the game 6-8 overall and 5-2 in the SWAC after downing the Alabama A&M Bulldogs 51-32.  Southern is led by Kendra Coleman, who is scoring 14.2 points per game, and she is followed by red-shirt senior Jamie Floyd who has 8.9 points per game.  Adrian Sanders follows the two of them with 8.9 points per game.
 
“Southern is long and rangy they have a strong tradition in winning championships," said Freeman-Jackson.  They have a young team and some veteran players that played on the 2010 Championship team.   We are going to have our work cut out for us, they play good defense and it's hard to shot over them.”
 
Southern currently leads the all-time series 31-23.  The Lady Hornets fell to the Jaguars in the first round of the 2011 SWAC Tournament falling 58-36.
 
Monday's game will be featured on live stats by clicking on the following link or going to gojagsports.com for more information:  http://www.gojagsports.com/liveStats/liveStats