A NEW ERA OF ATHLETICS More sports, new conference

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. 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

GCAC Player of the Year and — for the first time since Bruce Seals in 1972-73 — a first-team NAIA All-American. Women’s basketball won the GCAC Tournament as a No. 4 seed. The Gold Nuggets outscored Edward Waters 8-0 in the final 3:40 of overtime to earn a 56-52 victory on the Lady Tigers’ home floor in the championship game. Nia Bishop was GCAC Newcomer of the Year. Competitive Cheer, in just its second season, finished fifth at NAIA nationals in 2021 and entered that event No. 1 in the NAIA in average points per meet. It was 10 in a row for volleyball in three areas: GCAC regular-season and tournament championships and automatic bids to NAIA nationals. Semira Blair was Louisiana Newcomer of the Year, and Pat Kendrick shared Coach of the Year — her third state coaching award in four seasons. Blair was GCAC Player of the Year and Newcomer of the Year, and Kennedy Wade was Freshman of the Year. Women’s tennis, ranked third all season in the NAIA coaches’ poll, finished in that position at the national tournament. It was sixth time in the last eight attempts that the Gold Nuggets reached the semifinals.

Both tennis teams had affiliate membership in the Southern States Athletic Conference, and the Nuggets won the SSAC regular-season and tournament championships without losing a point in team scoring. Angela Charles-Alfred and Lailaa Bashir repeated as ITA Cup NAIA national doubles champion. Earning All-America were Charles-Alfred, Bashir, Kyra Akinnibi and Farah Baklouti. Valentina Largacha was Louisiana Freshman of the Year, and Alan Green shared Louisiana Coach of the Year. Men’s tennis made its earliest exit at NAIA nationals — a 4-3 roundof-16 loss to Union (Ky.), a team the Gold Rush defeated 4-2 during the regular season — but still finished in the top-10 in the coaches’ poll for the 11th consecutive season at No. 9. Santiago Perez, a junior, shared Louisiana Player of the Year along with Tulane’s Hamish Stewart. Perez, Shaikh Abdullah, Juan Varon and Juan Ramirez earned AllAmerica. Green shared Louisiana Coach of the Year. The men’s track team produced the highest team finish ever by XULA track and field at NAIA nationals — a tie for 21st place outdoors — and produced three All-Americans: Jeffery Frazier, Seth Alexander and Santerrius Barlow. Frazier, seeded 21st in the triple jump, earned the Gold Rush’s second-ever top-3 finish at NAIA outdoor nationals with a school record of 15.16 meters / 49 feet, 9 inches. Frazier finished third. Alexander placed eighth in the triple jump, and Barlow was fourth in the 100. Women’s track returned from NAIA outdoor track and field nationals with five All-Americans — Carter, McBean, Ariel Ford, Alexis Williams and Ebone Stingley — and a tie for 34th place in team scoring. Williams earned All-America in two events because of her fifth-place finish in the 400-meter dash and a seventh in the 400 relay with Stingley, Ford and McBean. Carter placed sixth in the 100 hurdles. XULA won all 11 track events at the GCAC Championships and set a GCAC meet record for victory margin. Women’s cross country rolled to its 14th consecutive GCAC team championship with a new lineup at the top. Individually freshmen Jalyn Jenkins and Reagan Collins finished 1-3. Men’s cross country finished second at the conference meet. Those results earned Yhann Plummer GCAC Coach of the Year in both women’s cross country and women’s track and field. The GCAC has honored Plummer six times since taking the helm in August 2018. This was XULA’s 40th and final year as a GCAC member. This summer Xavier became a full-time member of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) Red River Athletic Conference, whose membership consists primarily of teams in Louisiana and Texas. XG

Xavier Joins the Red River Conference

Intercollegiate sports competition will have a new look this fall as Xavier has joined the NAIA’s Red River Athletic Conference (RRAC), ending its 40-year affiliation with the Gulf Coast Athletic Conference (GCAC), of which it was a charter member. The RRAC, founded in 1998, consists of 13 schools in Louisiana, Texas, and New Mexico. The move is expected to enhance connectivity with alumni, many of whom are concentrated in the new areas of athletic competition and expand opportunities for Xavier teams to compete for conference championships and automatic bids to NAIA national tournaments.

Member Institutions

• University of Houston-Victoria (TX) • Huston–Tillotson University (Austin TX) # • Jarvis Christian College (Hawkins TX) # • Louisiana State University-Alexandria (LA) • Louisiana State University-Shreveport (LA) • Our Lady of the Lake University (San Antonio TX) • Paul Quinn College (Dallas TX) # • University of the Southwest (Hobbs NM) • Texas College (Tyler TX) # • Texas A&M University-San Antonio TX) • Texas A&M University-Texarkana (TX) • Wiley College (Marshall TX) # • Xavier University of Louisiana #

# HBCU