The South Georgia Technical College Lady Jets captured a 71 – 66 victory over the Chattahoochee Valley Community College Lady Pirates Saturday in new head coach Jason Carpenter’s first home game in the Hangar. The win propelled the Lady Jets to 1 – 1 overall after a loss to the National Junior College Athletic Association’s (NJCAA) sixth ranked Gulf Coast Community College in Panama City, FL, last week.
“We will take it,” said SGTC Athletic Director and Lady Jets head coach Jason Carpenter when asked about his first victory with the Lady Jets. “We are all still learning. I saw some things that we still need to work on and I can promise that we will continue to improve as the season progresses.”
Freshman Enola Papin, 24, also tossed in 16 points for the Lady Jets.
The Lady Jets were playing without freshman guard Destiny Bishop from Bay Shore, NY, who was called home for a family emergency as well as Greta Carollo, a sophomore shooting guard from Vincenza, Italy, and Mio Sakano, a freshman guard from Yamanshi, Japan, who were out with injuries.
“We had eight players and all of them got a lot of playing time,” said Carpenter. “In the long run, this will help us, but I will be glad when we get those three players back.” The Lady Jets also got into foul trouble early and every player finished the game with three or four fouls on the night.
The Lady Jets actually fell behind 0 – 3 in the opening minutes of the contest but soon rallied to tie the game at 9 – 9 with 5:25 remaining in the first quarter. From that point on, the Lady Jets pulled ahead and never allowed the Lady Pirates to come back and take the lead. The Lady Jets outscored the Lady Pirates 24 – 9 in the second quarter to go up 42 – 25 at the end of the first half and that 17-point lead was their largest of the night.
Chattahoochee Valley Community College outscored the Lady Jets 18 – 15 in the third quarter and 23 – 14 in the fourth quarter but SGTC was able to hang on and take the 71 – 66 victory.
Freshman shooting guard Enola Papin from Saint Etienne, France, and sophomore shooting guard Vera Gunaydin from Ankara, Turkey, were the leading scorers for the Lady Jets with 16 points each. Gunaydin hit four three pointers and was perfect from the foul line with two for two. Gunaydin and Papin both pulled down five rebounds each.
Isabel de Souza Bueno, a freshman guard from Sao Paolo, Brazil, tossed in 13 points and Maria Diaz, a freshman forward from Zaragoza, Spain, closed out the double digit scoring with 12 points each. All of the Lady Jets scored in that match-up with Maria Favero adding six, Maeva Fotsa accounting for four, and Hinano Imamura and Jessica Kailainy tossing in two each.
The Lady Jets will play at home again on November 24th and 25th in the Pete Arrington Classic. They will face Chipola College at 6 p.m. on Friday, November 24, and Miami Dade at 6 p.m. on Saturday, November 25.
The Jets will play at home on November 18 at 6 p.m. when they host Chattahoochee Valley Community College and then again on Tuesday, November 21 at 7:30 p.m. when they host New Rock Prep.