Jets end regular season with impressive win over Gordon State College

The South Georgia Technical College Jets put together an impressive 100 – 82 Georgia Collegiate Athletic Association (GCAA) Conference victory over Gordon State College Wednesday to finish the regular season with an 18 – 11 overall record and a 11 – 5 conference performance.
The win allowed the Jets to secure fourth place in the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) Region XVII end of the season tournament. As one of the top four seeds from the regular season, the Jets will now host a first round or quarter-final game for the tournament on Tuesday, March 6th at 7 p.m. in the Hangar on the South Georgia Technical College Americus campus. Four GCAA men’s teams still have regular season games scheduled for Saturday, March 2nd which could affect the playoff standings. Right now it looks like the Jets will host East Georgia, which is in 5th place with a 9 – 7 overall record.
The top-seeded Georgia Highlands team (12- 3) lost to third ranked Central Georgia Tech (11 – 5) Wednesday night. Georgia Highlands and South Georgia State College of Waycross (11 – 4) both have games Saturday. A loss by Georgia Highlands and a win by South Georgia would put them tied for first place with 12 – 4 records. A loss by South Georgia State would mean a three-way tie for second place with Central Georgia Tech and South Georgia Tech with 11 – 5 identical records. Each of the top four teams will host a game but the weekend results may determine where the semi-final and final rounds are played and who will match-up in the quarterfinal round. Right now, Georgia Highlands stands to be the host site, but South Georgia State in Waycross has the opportunity to earn the GCAA title and host the tournament if Georgia Highlands loses on Saturday. The games to watch Saturday are South Georgia State vs. Gordon State and Georgia Highlands vs. Andrew College.
No matter what happens Saturday, South Georgia Technical College Jets head coach Travis Garrett is pleased that his team walked away with a victory in their last regular season game and earned the right to host a first-round game. The win gave Garrett his best regular season performance at the helm of the Division I Jets team (18 – 11; 11 – 5) and highest finish in the regular season at 4th place.
But that game is behind him now and he is looking ahead to the NJCAA Region XVII quarter-final round on Tuesday night. Last season the Jets moved from a seventh place regular season finish into second place behind the champion Georgia Highlands team. He is hoping to improve on that record.
“We have got to play consistently if we want to beat good teams,” said Garrett. “We played in spurts against Gordon last night. There were four lead changes and two ties early in the first half and at one time we had a 13-point lead before we let Gordon come back in the final minutes and cut the lead to seven-points to go into the half up 43 – 36.”
The Jets came together in the second half and outscored Gordon 57 – 46 to coast to the 100 – 82 victory. Five Jets scored in double-figures in that game. Sophomore forward Marquel Wiggins led the team in scoring with 21 points, sophomore guard Mike Boone added 17, and freshman guard Isaac LeCompte accounted for 16 points. Freshman forward Adonis Green scored 15 points and sophomore guard Rico Simmons closed out the double-digit scoring with 12 points. Emeshuan Offord added eight points, DeVante Foster had three points, and then Malik Wilson, Durand Green, Nemanja Jovanovic and Sam Matrice each scored two points.
As the Jets move into the tournament, Coach Garrett is reminding his six sophomore players to play each game like it is their last in a Jets uniform. “We have to keep winning to keep playing. It is that simple. It is tournament time and we need to have everyone focused on winning the game at hand,” said Garrett. The Jets lost by only two points to both Georgia Highlands and South Georgia State College in the regular season so one layup or a couple of foul shots can make the difference in winning and continuing or losing and closing out the season.
“This is a really good group of players. They are talented. We just have to play together and be unselfish. The goal now is to win the NJCAA Region XVII tournament and earn the right to advance to the National Tournament in Hutchinson, Kansas. We are capable of making that happen,” said Garrett.
The Jets are 46 – 47 under head coach Travis Garrett in his three seasons at the helm of the Division I GCAA team. His team finished in eighth place in the regular season in his first year as head coach in Americus. They moved up a notch into seventh place in the regular season in 2016-2017 and finished the Region XVII Tournament as the NJCAA Region XVII runner-ups. This year the Jets are guaranteed at least a 4th place finish for the regular season and have the opportunity to improve on last season’s tournament performance.