Expansion, Excellence Take Athletics to New Heights By Ed Cassiere XULA Associate Athletics Director for Strategic Communications
For Xavier athletics, recent sport expansion and excellence have not been mutually exclusive. During the past two seasons Xavier has added four teams to its intercollegiate offerings to increase the University’s total to a schoolrecord 13. During the 2019-20 academic year, co-ed competitive cheer made its debut, while women’s indoor track and field competed for the first time since 2004. This past season softball made its debut, and baseball returned for the first time since 1960. The results for those four newbies ranged from impressive to . . . wow! As a result, XULA won the Thomas Howell Cup, the Gulf Coast Athletic Conference’s (GCAC) all-sports award, for the fifth consecutive year and the 10th time in the last 11 years. XULA’s collection of 2020-21 championships at the conference and unaffiliated group level totaled nine, equaling a school record. Baseball’s resurrection included a 27-11 record and a second-place finish at the Black College World Series. The Gold Rush also were one victory from a bid to NAIA nationals. Eleven straight wins from March 7 to April 3 helped XULA climb to No. 1 in the blackcollegenines.com small-school rankings. In the same site’s HBCU small-school awards, left-handed freshman Juwan Fitch was named Pitcher of the Year, and Adrian Holloway earned Coach of the Year honors.
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Softball, though it finished 8-13, started strongly by winning 2-of-3 at the Eagle Classic at Texarkana TX. The program opener was a 6-4 victory against Texas A&M-Texarkana, which eventually finished 27-8. Then the Gold Nuggets rallied for a 9-7 victory the next day against Lyon, which received votes in the NAIA preseason coaches’ poll. Baseball’s return and softball’s debut attracted national media coverage — baseball in the New York Times and softball at the website theundefeated.com. Women’s indoor track and field produced two qualifiers for NAIA nationals in 2020 — neither advanced — then scored points at the 2021 national meet and tied for 27th in team scoring. Emerald Carter finished fourth in the 60-meter hurdles, and Jada McBean was fifth in the 60-meter dash. Those performances made Carter and McBean XULA’s first All-Americans indoors since 2004. For the first time in XULA history, both basketball teams won in the first round of NAIA nationals during the same season. Men’s basketball repeated as GCAC Tournament champion for the first time since the early 1980s. Rayshawn Mart was the program’s first
