Lady Jets remain unbeaten in conference play with impressive win over Central Georgia Tech; Jets lose to South Georgia State
The South Georgia Technical College Lady Jets took an impressive 115 -70 Georgia Collegiate Athletic Association (GCAA) conference victory over Central Georgia Tech to remain in first place in the conference with a 3 – 0 record. The Jets dropped an 80 – 73 GCAA decision to South Georgia State College in the second half of the double-header.
This was the Lady Jets third consecutive win and moved them to 12- 5 overall. The Jets are 2 – 14 overall and 0 – 2 in the conference. This was their fourth straight loss and put them in 9th place in the GCAA men’s Division I standings.
Aiden Fitzgerald, 20, led the Jets in scoring with 26 points in the loss to South Georgia State College.
The Lady Jets jumped out to an impressive 11 – 1 lead in the first three minutes of the game and that set the pace for the entire night. They Lady Jets were up 25 – 9 at the end of the first quarter and stretched that to 50 – 32 at the half. A strong third quarter saw the Lady Jets outscore Central 43 – 18 and then coast on to the 115 – 70 win.
Three Lady Jets were in double-digits. Freshman Jamiah Gregory from Marietta, GA, led the team in scoring with 27 points. She was joined by three other Lady Jets in double-digits. Freshman Kaiya Carter and sophomore Enola Papin both had 20 points each. Papin had a double-double night with 20 points and 10 rebounds. Mio Sakano came away with 15 points.
Other Lady Jets scoring included Cheyenne Preston with nine, Stephie Salumu with eight, Mariia Ignatchenko had seven, and Duilly Silva accounted for six points. Maria Favero and Hayda Toro closed out the scoring with 2 and one points respectively.
Following that impressive win by the Lady Jets, the Jets came out managed to keep the game close early before falling behind 41 – 30 at the half. The Jets led by three points 12 – 9 with 14:39 left in the first half which saw five lead changes and four ties. South Georgia State came on strong in the last five minutes of the half to establish an 11-point lead going into half-time.
Even though the Jets outscored the Hawks 43 – 39 in the second half, that 11-point deficit was too steep to overcome. The Jets did close the gap to five points in the final two -minutes of the game and were only down by five with 24 seconds remaining. The final buzzer sounded with South Georgia State up 80 – 73.
Aiden Fitzgerald, a freshman forward from Australia was the top scorer for the Jets with 26 points. Jalexs Ewing, a freshman guard from Augusta was close behind with 19 points and Hendrens Bartelus was the only other Jet in double-digits with 11 points. He also led the team in rebounding with 16.
Vaughn Prosser had five points before suffering an injury and Darryl Bod added four points. Matija Vucic accounted for three points, Dwight Brown and Matt Mbole had two each and Jordan Dickson had one point on the night.
Both teams will be back in action, Saturday, January 18th in the hangar in a double-header. They will be hosting the East Georgia State College Lady Bobcats and Bobcats in a conference contest at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m.