Friday, January 22, 2016

Women's Basketball Falls To Florida; No. 4 Tide Gymnastics Hosts No. 10 Arkansas; Crimson Tide Softball Ranked 4th; Bama Linebacker Keith Holcombe To Play Baseball; Women's Tennis Hosts Match This Weekend


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Women's Basketball Falls To Florida 

Photo Credit: RollTide.com


The Alabama women's basketball team put up a valiant fight to overcome a 21-point deficit but fell 80-72 to the No. 22/23 Florida Gators at the O'Connell Center in Gainesville, Florida. A 15-3 run by the Gators in a little over six minutes doomed the Tide as they fell to 13-6, 2-4 SEC. Florida improved their season to 16-3, 4-2 SEC.

Crimson Tide head coach KRISTY CURRY said, "You do everything you can to get a basket. You've just got to make shots. I thought they were a lot tougher and better conditioned down the stretch. Everybody is going to talk about how we competed and played hard, but I am tired of that. At the end of the day they've got to find ways to make plays and win games, and we are not getting that from certain spots. We've go to continue to go to our bench and come back and whoever is playing well is who we are going to go with."


Sophomore MEOSHONTI KNIGHT had a career-high night in scoring pumping in 23 points, with freshman SHAQUERA WADE adding her own career-best with 13 additional points. Also scoring in double figures for Bama were sophomores HANNAH COOK scoring 16 points and QUANETRIA BOLTON adding 11 points to the total. NIKKI HESTETTER and KARYLA MIDDLEBROOK added three points each, BREANNA HAYDEN added two points and KHADIJAH CARTER rounded out the scoring with one point.

Alabama shot 47.3 percent (26-55) from the floor, with the Gators hitting 54.2 percent (32-59). The Tide were soundly beaten in rebounds 40-25 not being as aggressive as the Gators. Bama was only 16-31 from the free throw line, while Florida hit on 10-15.

Cook, Middlebrook and Hayden each tied with four rebounds for Bama. Hegstetter and Knight pulled down three rebounds each, with Bolton and Wade both adding one to the total. Five were listed as team rebounds.

Alabama travels to Nashville to again battle the Vanderbilt Commodores on Monday, January 25th. Tip off is scheduled for 6 p.m. CT. 

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No. 4 Alabama Gymnastics Hosts No. 10 Arkansas

Photo Credit: RollTide.com



The fourth-ranked Alabama Crimson Tide gymnastics team hosts the tenth-ranked Arkansas Razorbacks tonight at 6 p.m. CT. This will be Bama's fourth top-15 foe this season. 

"We definitely jumped right into things this season," stated Tide head coach DANA DUCKWORTH. "But we had a plan and we've been smart in developing our depth and getting everyone some valuable experiences as we've moved through this first week of the season."

Tonight's meet is a part of Academic Achievement Night. Bama will celebrate its 3.8 team grade point average as well as honoring local elementary school students who have made the A/B honor roll.  Those making honor roll status were giving vouchers for two free tickets to tonight's meet through their local schools.

Duckworth said, "Academics is at the heart of everything we do here at Alabama. Our ladies work very hard in the classroom to be the best that they can be and it certainly shows. We hope that all the elementary school students who earned a place on the honor roll will join us as we honor their achievements on Friday."

This weekend is a very busy one on the UA campus. Tonight, of course, gymnastics. Saturday has a 10 a.m. CT swimming and diving meet in the Alabama Aquatic Center, the football national championship celebration at 11 a.m. in front of Denny Chimes and finally a 1 p.m. men's basketball game in Coleman Coliseum. Sunday at 10 a.m. in the indoor tennis stadium will be a women's tennis double-header. 

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Crimson Tide Softball Ranked 4th

Photo Credit: RollTide.com



The University of Alabama Crimson Tide softball team has been ranked at No. 4 in the 2016 SEC preseason coaches poll. The announcement came from the Southeastern Conference office on Thursday. 

The defending national champion Florida Gators topped the poll with 10 of the 13 first-place votes, LSU coming in second with the other three. SEC tournament winner, Auburn, was third.

The Crimson Tide has finished in the top three in the Southeastern Conference 10 of the last 11 seasons and won at least 20 conference contests in seven of those seasons.  Alabama has won five SEC regular season titles, including three of the last five. Bama last won the conference crown in 2014.


2016 SEC Softball Preseason Coaches' Poll

  1    Florida
  2    LSU
  3    Auburn
  4    ALABAMA
  5    Tennessee
  6    Georgia
  7    Missouri
  8    Kentucky
  9    Texas A&M
10    Mississippi State
11    South Carolina
12    Ole Miss
13    Arkansas

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Bama Linebacker Keith Holcombe To Play Baseball


Photo via Bing.com

University of Alabama football linebacker KEITH HOLCOMBE has decided to play baseball this spring at UA, according to BamaOnLine. What a lot people don't realize is, the young Holcombe was a center fielder and pitcher at Hillcrest High School in his home state of Alabama, and a lot of people don't realize he was selected in the 37th round of the 2014 Major League Baseball Draft by the Arizona Diamondbacks. He was pick number 1,110 overall. He decided he wanted to play football for the Crimson Tide.

The Tide baseball season isn't very far away. Alabama will host Maryland in a three-game series for its 2016 season opener at the newly-renovated Sewell-Thomas Stadium on February 19th.

Holcombe did say that head football coach NICK SABAN said that "it's perfectly fine" as long as it didn't interfere with anything concerning the football program and commitments to it.

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Women's Tennis Ranked 15th
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Hosts 4-Team Match This Weekend


Photo Credit: RollTide.com

The University of Alabama women's tennis team held on to it's No. 15 ranking in the Oracle/ITA Collegiate Tennis Division I Women's Team Rankings according to the Intercollegiate Tennis Association. The announcement came Wednesday.

A total of eight teams from the Southeastern Conference were ranking among the 25 best in the nation which included four in the top 10. Vanderbilt remained at No. 1, with Florida at No. 3, Georgia tied for fourth and Texas A&M coming in 10th.

This weekend Alabama will host No. 40 Texas, No 45 Purdue as well as Penn at the Roberta Alison Baumgardner Tennis Facility as a part of the ITA Kick-Off Weekend. Bama opens with Penn on Saturday at 10 a.m. CT. The winners of Saturday's matches will then play on Sunday at 2 p.m CT, with the losers playing at 10 a.m. CT on Sunday.

The team coming out on top will qualify for the 2016 ITA National Women's Team Indoor Championship hosted by the University of Wisconsin. The championship will be held in Madison, Wisconsin and is scheduled to begin February 5th.