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LeTourneau University – Sports

MEN’S BASKETBALL

RICHARDSON, Texas – LeTourneau University baseball senior infielder Gonzalo Sosa and junior pitcher Andrew Harlan have been named to the American Southwest Conference 2018 Baseball Preseason Players to Watch list as announced by the conference office on Wednesday, January 17th.

As a team, LETU was picked 13th in the 2018 ASC Preseason Baseball Poll, receiving 59 total points. Defending ASC Champion and preseason ranked No. 19 in the Collegiate Baseball poll, Texas-Tyler was picked to win the conference after earning 21 out of a possible 26 first-place votes to garner 331 points while preseason No. 7 Texas-Dallas was picked to finish second with 304 points and the remaining five first-place votes. Concordia Texas rounded out the top three with 285 points and is 30th in the Collegiate Baseball preseason poll.

Last season, Sosa started all 37 games for the YellowJackets and led the team with a .311 batting average while stealing eight bases. The Houston, Texas native finished second on the team in runs scored (24), home runs (2), total bases (59), walks (15), slugging percentage (.437), doubles (11), and at-bats (135). That helped him earn All-American Southwest Conference honorable mention honors last season.

Harlan enters the 2018 campaign after making a team-high 12 starts last season, throwing two complete games while working a team-high 72.0 total innings for LETU. The Lewisville, Texas native had the second-lowest earned run average (4.38) last season among pitchers, and allowed just 27 extra-base hits in 292 at bats last year.

LeTourneau University will open the 2018 season on Friday, February 9th with a neutral-site game against Willamette University in Grand Prairie, Texas at 6:00 p.m. The game will be one of three games on opening weekend for LETU at AirHogs Stadium, the home of the minor-league Texas AirHogs.

 

LONGVIEW, Texas – Due to ongoing maintenance conducted at H.O. West Fieldhouse on the Louisiana College campus, the LeTourneau University women’s and men’s basketball teams will now play host to the Wildcats in American Southwest Conference Saturday, January 20, with tip-off scheduled for 2:00 and 4:00 p.m.

The change was finalized Tuesday morning, as Louisiana College will switch home games with LETU and host the YellowJackets on Thursday, February 8.

LeTourneau will still play at Belhaven University on Thursday evening, with the women playing at 5:30 and the men scheduled to play at 7:30 p.m. before returning home for three straight home games.

Live video and stats will be available for Saturday’s doubleheader by going to portal.stretchinternet.com/letu.

 

Field Athletes of the Week

 

RICHARDSON, Texas – LeTourneau University freshman track and field athletes Ro Galloway and Austin Parrish have been named American Southwest Conference Field Athletes of the Week for their performances at the Leonard Hilton Memorial Invitational in Houston, Texas on Friday, January 12.

Galloway, the freshman from Texarkana, Texas, helped set two first school records on Friday, recording a long jump of 4.54 meters (14 ft. – 10.75 in.) to place 14th before running the 60-meter dash in 8.42 seconds.

A nursing major at LeTourneau University, Ro is the daughter of Kisie and Ronnie Galloway.

ASC Men’s Field Athlete of the Week Austin Parrish earned his first career ASC award after making a top-eight finish in his first collegiate track meet by clearing 4.30 meters (14 ft. – 1.25 in.) in the pole vault. The mark tied for 42nd in the nation on the NCAA Division III performance list.

A Carthage, Texas native, Parrish is studying kinesiology at LeTourneau University and is the son of Randy Parish and Maria Marsh.

LETU will be back in action on Friday, January 26th when they take part in the McNeese State University Indoor Invitational in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

 

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

LONGVIEW, Texas – A 9-1 run by East Texas Baptist University would allow the visiting Tigers to claim the lead for good as the LeTourneau University women’s basketball team fell by a final score of 68-48 in part one of the Highway 80 rivalry at Solheim Arena in Longview, Texas on Monday, January 15.

LETU falls to 3-12 overall and 0-8 in the American Southwest Conference while ETBU remains atop the ASC East standings while improving to 13-2 overall and 7-1 in the ASC.

On a night where neither team was able to find much of a scoring touch, the Tigers would be able to connect on 35.8 percent (24-67) of their shots from the field while taking advantage of a 16-of-21 (76.2 percent) performance from the charity stripe. The YellowJackets managed to be efficient from the field in the first half by going 13-for-28 (46.4 percent) before being limited to a season-low three field goals in the second half (3-29, 10.3 percent). East Texas Baptist also utilized a size advantage on the low block to outscore LETU 38-18 on points in the paint to overcome eleven second-chance points for LeTourneau.

Senior Savannah Cummings led the YellowJackets on the night, falling just short of a double-double after scoring a team-high 12 points and grabbing nine rebounds. Jaila Leaven assisted on five buckets while also scoring eight points as senior Ashley Reed saw her streak of nine consecutive games of scoring double-digits end after only scoring nine points. Madison McCoy, who also added four assists, led ETBU with a game-high 15 points.

It would manage to take a few minutes for the scoring by both sides to get going as LETU jumped out to a 9-5 lead midway through the opening period after a Cummings rebound and put back following a Reed missed three. East Texas Baptist would score five quick points to tie the game at nine all just 56 seconds later before eventually taking a 17-16 lead on a Brittney Jones free throw into the second quarter.

The Tigers maintained their lead throughout much of the second quarter, with ETBU seeing LeTourneau pull within one three different times before opening up their largest lead of the first half at 27-20 with 5:17 remaining before intermission. LETU then used a 9-0 run to reclaim the lead at 29-27 with just under two minutes left in the first half, but once again found themselves down a single point as East Texas Baptist used a jumper in the paint with 21 seconds before halftime to take the lead.

A third quarter to forget, saw LeTourneau manage to hit just one field goal coming on a Reed triple with 5:39 left in the period. That cut the East Texas Baptist lead to 40-36, but ETBU would score seven of the final 11 points in the quarter with only one made field goal coming in the back end of the third.

Free throw shooting continued to be the story to start the fourth quarter with the Tigers hitting three of their first four shots from the foul line to open up a 10 point lead at 50-40 before extending their lead to 57-43 with 6:51 remaining in the game. LeTourneau would fight back as they have done all season to cut the lead to single digits at 57-48 on a Reed free throw heading into the final 4:25 of the game, but a scoring drought found the YellowJackets which allowed ETBU to come away with the last 11 points of the game.

LETU will get a chance to respond on Thursday, January 18th when they hit the road to Jackson, Mississippi to take on Belhaven University starting at 5:30 p.m. The Blazers are 2-13 overall this year and 2-6 in the ASC.

Matt Kinney
Sports Information Director