Griffin, GA – The South Georgia Technical College Jets and Lady Jets took two conference wins over the Southern Crescent Technical College Tigers in Griffin recently. The nationally ranked Lady Jets kept their first place ranking in the Georgia Collegiate Athletic Association with a perfect 10 – 0 record and moved to 18 – 2 overall. The win lifted the SGTC Jets to 2 – 2 in the conference for a fifth place ranking. They are 6 – 12 overall.
Jets Freshman guard Justin Johnson scored the winning lay-up in an exciting 66 – 64 victory over the Southern Crescent Tigers and then the Lady Jets had to overcome a 13-point deficit with less than five minutes remaining to secure a 72 – 62 win over the Lady Tigers. “
We did not play well at all,” said South Georgia Technical College Athletic Director and Lady Jets head basketball coach James Frey. “We scored 34 of our 72 points in the fourth quarter. That was more points than we scored in the entire first half. We have got to learn to play an entire 40-minutes.”
The Lady Jets were down 24 -13 at the end of the first quarter and were still trailing 29 – 20 at the half. Southern Crescent was up 45 – 38 at the end of the third quarter and were able to stretch that lead to 13 points before the Lady Jets started their come back. The Lady Jets outscored Southern Crescent 34 – 17 in the fourth quarter to take the come from behind victory.
Despite the poor performance for three quarters, four Lady Jets scored in double-digits. Sophomore guard Alyssa Nieves led the team in scoring with 21 points. Twelve of those points were from three-point baskets. Ricka Jackson contributed 15 points, Biggue Sarr had 13 points and 12 rebounds for a double-double and Kamya Hollingshed scored 11 points to close out the double digit scoring. Mari Hill had three points, Amara Edeh, Rio Yamazaki, Yasriyyah Wazeerud-Din, and Laky Samo all had two points each. Anna McKendree closed out the scoring with one point.
The Jets also seemed to have a problem playing for 40-minutes. However, they led almost the entire game and allowed Southern Crescent to creep back up in the fourth quarter before a last second basket by Justin Johnson put the Jets ahead 66 – 64 at the buzzer.
Justin Johnson was the leading scorer for the Jets with 16 points. Jeremy Johnson was close behind with 15 points. Adonis Green came up with 10 points and 11 rebounds for a double-double performance. Other Jets scoring included Sam Matice, 6; Dijon Brown, 5; Jalen McKinney, 4; Nick Cummings, 4; Toriano Lewis, 3; D.J. Fisher, 2; and Jonathan Tchuisse, 1.
Both the Jets and the Lady Jets will be traveling on Saturday. The Lady Jets play Wallace State College in Hanceville, AL at 3 p.m. on January 19th and the Jets travel to Waycross to play South Georgia State at 3 p.m. The two teams will travel to Albany on Wednesday, January 23rd for a double-header with Albany Technical College on the Albany State Campus at 5:30 and 7:30 p.m.