Friday the 13th was not kind to the South Georgia Technical College Jets and Lady Jets as both teams fell in the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) Region XVII Division I basketball tournaments. The Central Georgia Tech Lady Titans upset the top-ranked Lady Jets 94 – 83 in the NJCAA Regional XVII Tournament finals in Americus and then the Jets fell to South Georgia State 82 -78 in the men’s NJCAA Region XVII semi-finals in Macon.
The South Georgia Tech Lady Jets ended the season as the Georgia Collegiate Athletic Association (GCAA) regular season champions with a 14 – 1 conference record but finished the NJCAA Region XVII end of the season tournament in second place behind Central Georgia Tech and wound up 20 – 12 on the year.
This was SGTC Athletic Director and Lady Jets head coach Jason Carpenter’s third year at the helm of the Lady Jets. He is 66 – 30 overall at SGTC. In his first year as head coach, the Lady Jets lost in the NJCAA semi-final round. Last season, the Lady Jets won the GCAA regular season title and advanced to the NJCAA National Tournament in Casper, Wyoming where they lost in their opening game.
This season, the Lady Jets were hoping for a repeat trip to the NJCAA national tournament but too many turnovers and poor shooting percentages left them with a 94 – 83 loss to end the season. The Lady Jets have been to the NJCAA National Tournament 11 times in 22 years. First year head coach Brandon Harrell took his team to the national tournament once. Former SGTC Lady Jets head coach James Frey took the Lady Jets to the nationals nine times in 11 years and current coach Jason Carpenter has been once in three years.
The Lady Jets fell behind 0 – 2 to Central Georgia Tech in the opening minutes of the tournament finals, but then rallied and went up 9 – 5 with 7:15 remaining in the first quarter. Then Central Georgia Tech scored 14 unanswered points and went on a 20 – 2 scoring spree over the Lady Jets to pull ahead 30 – 20 at the end of the first quarter.
South Georgia Tech rallied in the second quarter and overcame the 10-point deficit to pull within one point, 37 – 38, with 2:20 remaining in the half. However, Central Georgia Tech rallied again and stretched their lead to 46 – 40 at half-time.
In the second half, both teams stepped it up and there were 10 lead changes and five ties in the final 20 minutes. The Lady Jets got their first lead, 54 – 53 with 5:30 remaining in the third quarter, but it was short-lived. The Lady Jets went up 68 – 66 with 13.1 second remaining when Central Georgia Tech hit a three-pointer to go up 69 – 68 at the end of three quarters.
The fourth quarter was all Central Georgia Tech. The Lady Jets did take a 73 – 72 lead with 8:13 remaining in the game but after that Central came back and was up by as many as 14 points before capturing the victory 94 – 83 and earned the right to advance to the NJCAA National Tournament in St. Charles, LA.
Sophomore guard TaJa Bennett was the leading scorer for the Lady Jets with 27 points and 12 rebounds. She was joined in double-digits by four other Lady Jets. Freshman Ja’Niya Broome had 18 points and six rebounds, Jada Jones and Jaidyn Elam both tossed in 11 points and Sepora Benth had 10 on the night. Candice Ganga was the only other Lady Jet to play and score and she had six points.
Laterria Green was the top scorer for Central Georgia Tech with 34 points. Amira Walters-Smith added 21 points and then Aryana Thomas closed out the double-digit scoring for the Lady Titans with 16 points.
Central Georgia Tech hit 56.1% of their total shots (37 of 66) and 43.5% of their three-point attempts (10 of 23). They also made 10 of their 17 free throw attempts. South Georgia Tech hit 26 of 72 total field goals for a 36.1% shooting average and was only 7 of 28 from the three-point line for a 25% success rate. They did make 24 of 31 free-throws but had 22 turnovers. Sixteen of those came in the first half.
The Central Georgia Technical College Lady Titans will not travel to the NJCAA National Tournament in St. Charles, LA, March 24 – 31st as the GCAA and Region XVII representatives.