Barlow leads Virginia State back into NCAA D-II Top 25

HEAD COACH REGGIE BARLOW
VSU TROJANS FOOTBALL

PETERSBURG, Virginia -- Virginia State has resurfaced in the national rankings under Reggie Barlow.

The Trojans cracked the AFCA NCAA Division II Top 25 after last week’s 47-35 win over then-No. 14-ranked Bowie State.

Ranked 21st in the poll, Virginia State (6-0, 4-0 CIAA) plays Lincoln (0-7, 0-4) Saturday.

Barlow, who was fired at Alabama State in 2014 as the university’s winningest coach (49-42 in eight seasons), is 15-2 at Virginia State since taking the job in May 2016.

VSU was last ranked Dec. 22, 2014. The Trojans won the CIAA and reached the NCAA D-II playoffs that season with Latrell Scott as its head coach.

The now Norfolk State coach went 19-4 in two seasons at Virginia State.

The Trojans finished 6-4 in 2015, but lost its head coach when Byron Thweatt left after one season to coach linebackers at FCS school James Madison.

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Eruption: ASU celebrates first win of 2017 season

MONTGOMERY, Alabama -- Alabama State finally had reason to rejoice.

Nine days after losing their head coach, the Hornets won their first game of the season, 23-16, at winless Texas Southern last week.

“Those young men erupted,” ASU interim head coach Donald Hill-Eley said during Monday’s SWAC coaches teleconference.

“This was the first opportunity for them to get fruit from their labor of all the conditioning they’ve done since last year. They were very excited and I was excited for them.”

ASU started the season 0-5 after going 4-7 the previous season. Brian Jenkins, who came to ASU after winning 46 games in five seasons at Bethune-Cookman, was fired after losing 24-10 to Alcorn State at home on a Thursday night on ESPNU.

The Hornets went 10-17 in 2 1/2 seasons under Jenkins.

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JSU's Derrick McCall will call offensive plays against Southern

JACKSON, Mississippi -- Tony Hughes finally pulled the trigger Tuesday, elevating wide receivers coach Derrick McCall to co-offensive coordinator and putting him in charge of calling offensive plays going forward.

"I met with each coach individually and we all feel like this is what's best for the team," Hughes said Tuesday at his weekly press conference. "I don't want to go into it much further than that, because we don't want to tip our hand to Southern for this weekend's game."

Hughes did add that he will let McCall make the call on which player personnel he wants to use, saying he and his staff would meet as a group to make final decisions headed into Saturday's 6 p.m. kickoff at Memorial Stadium.

Chad Germany, McCall's co-coordinator who was formerly in charge of calling games, will take on the added role of coaching wide receivers and will be responsible for signaling in the plays and making substitution calls on the sidelines.

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Can you dig this? Nuggets improve to 8-0 in GCAC

TOUGALOO, Mississippi — Xavier University of Louisiana's defense, led by freshman libero Anna Dalla Vecchia, sparkled again in a 25-14, 25-13, 25-17 Gulf Coast Athletic Conference volleyball victory against Tougaloo.

Dalla Vecchia had 31 digs — 13 in the final set — to tie a XULA match record and help the Gold Nuggets (16-2, 8-0) win their sixth in a row. They knocked the Lady Bulldogs (16-9, 7-3) out of second place.

XULA got double-doubles from Juliana Tomasoni (10 kills, 13 digs) and Tiffany Phillips (21 assists, 10 digs). Tougaloo hit minus-.008 in 125 attacks and became the third XULA conference opponent in the last four matches to finish with more attack errors than kills. No GCAC opponent has hit better than .092 against XULA this season.

The Gold Nuggets will stay on the road and play GCAC opponent Philander Smith at 6 p.m. Tuesday in Little Rock, Ark.

BOX SCORE

Ed Cassiere, Assistant Athletic Director for Communications
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XAVIER UNIVERSITY OF LOUISIANA 
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College Baseball Central Podcast: Talking SWAC and MEAC Baseball with Michael Coker

TALLAHASSEE, Florida -- In this episode of the College Baseball Central Podcast, Joe Healy talks baseball in the SWAC and MEAC with Michael Coker of Black College Nines.

The headline from these two conferences in 2017 was obviously the postseason run by Bethune-Cookman. The Wildcats enjoyed a fantastic run in the Gainesville Regional, forcing the eventual national champion Florida Gators to a deciding seventh game before bowing out. Head coach Jason Beverlin has done an outstanding job of building upon the success that the program enjoyed under Mervyl Melendez.



In the SWAC, it feels like the league is fairly wide open. Alabama State it still well-stocked with talent. Texas Southern was a 2017 regional team and always plays well when it counts the most. Jackson State is as consistent as just about any program in the conference, and Grambling won their division last year. And that’s to say nothing of a program like Southern, which made a high-profile head coaching hire in bringing in Kerrick Jackson to replace the legendary Roger Cador.

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Why it’s so important that this football team (NCCU) beat a 1-5 non-conference opponent

DURHAM, North Carolina -- There’s not a lot Jerry Mack hasn’t accomplished in his four years as the head football coach at N.C. Central.

Mack, 36, has won three MEAC championships, becoming the first coach in school history to win 24 games in his first three years. Last season he led the Eagles to their first national ranking as a Division I-FCS program, finishing No. 19 in the FCS Coaches Poll. After N.C. Central’s first outright MEAC title in 2016, Mack led the team to its first bowl game since making the switch to Division I in 2011.



This season, N.C. Central is off to a 4-1 start and is 3-0 in the MEAC. Since starting at NCCU in 2014, Mack has gone 29-12 and 24-3 record in conference play. But for all he has accomplished, Mack, until this past weekend, still had one more thing to check off his list: beating a non-conference opponent.

N.C. Central this past Saturday finally did just that by beating Gardner-Webb (1-5) from the Big South 24-17, in the fifth meeting between the two in-state schools. The win goes a long way in helping the national reputation of N.C. Central, which entered the game ranked No. 25 in the FCS Coaches Poll.

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Unbeaten North Carolina A&T 'on the right track' after seventh victory

GREENSBORO, North Carolina — The seventh win didn’t come easy.

On the road at Florida A&M, playing in front of a standing-room-only homecoming crowd in a stadium that seats 25,500, N.C. A&T looked vulnerable in its 31-20 victory over the Rattlers on Saturday.

The Aggies lost three turnovers, including quarterback Lamar Raynard’s second and third interceptions of the season, and committed a season-high eight penalties for 64 yards.

And yet, it was still win No. 7. The Aggies are 7-0 for the first time since 1943 and just the third time in the program’s 93-year history.

“Man, let’s don’t take these wins for granted,” A&T coach Rod Broadway said today. “Winning is hard. Sometimes we get in a comfort zone where we think this (7-0 start) is the norm. Well, this isn’t normal. These guys are doing something special.”

Now comes the most difficult game of the season. A&T (7-0, 4-0 MEAC) will host Bethune-Cookman (3-3, 2-1) at 1 p.m. Saturday at Aggie Stadium.

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