The South Georgia Technical College Lady Jets rolled to a rousing 104 – 47 win over the Cape Fear Sea Devils in the second day of action in the Lady Jets Holiday Classic that featured four of the top 25 ranked women’s basketball teams in the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA). This was the Lady Jets 14th consecutive win this season and lifted them to 16 – 1 overall.
The Gulf Coast Lady Commodores, the top-ranked NJCAA women’s basketball team in the nation, remained unbeaten when they took a 66 – 60 win over the 11th ranked Shelton State Buccaneers in the premiere match-up of the classic on Monday. In the other action, Georgia Highlands lost to Eastern Florida in an 84 – 77 match-up. Georgia Highlands is now 9 – 7 overall this season.
Today, the final action gets underway with Gulf Coast facing Eastern Florida at 12 p.m., followed by Cape Fear and Albany Tech at 2 p.m. The 16th nationally ranked South Georgia Technical College Lady Jets will close out the tournament at 4 p.m. when they go up against a very strong 11th ranked Shelton State. The Lady Bucs are 11 – 2 after the loss to Gulf Coast Monday.
“We know that this is going to be a very tough game,” said South Georgia Technical College Athletic Director and Lady Jets head coach James Frey, when he was asked about the match-up against Shelton State. “They have a very good aggressive team and they only lost by six points to the top team in the nation so they are ready to redeem themselves. We need to play well and play forty full minutes of basketball to win. We are capable but we will have to execute.”
Frey felt good about the impressive 104 – 47 victory over Cape Fear Monday night but he still saw plenty of room for improvement. “We started out slowly. Cape Fear scored first and then we came back to tie the game and they pulled ahead before we tied the game again and finally went up and stayed ahead. We need to play much better tonight to win.”
The Lady Jets finally went ahead 22 – 10 at the end of the first quarter and had built a 36 – 22 lead by the end of the first half. The Lady Jets scored 69 points in the second half and held Cape Fear to only 25 points to clinch the 104 – 47 victory.
Sophomore guard Shamari Tyson has been battling illness this week but still started and led the team in scoring with 20 points, eight rebounds, three assists and five steals. Sophomore guard Anna McKendree and freshman center Femme Sikuzani were the next leading scorers for the Lady Jets with 14 points each and then Niya Goudelock and Veronica Charles closed out the double-digit scoring with 11 points each.
Sophomore Yasriyyah Wazeerud-Din added nine points, Hope Butera had eight points, Amara Edeh scored five points and Flore Nigasamputu and Oumy Gueye both came up with four points. Moe Shida and Sarah Lwambo closed out the scoring with two points each.
A total of seven women’s basketball teams and six men’s teams traveled to Americus to participate in the five-days of basketball action on the South Georgia Technical College campus during the Jets and the Lady Jets Holiday Classic.
After the tournament action, the Lady Jets will host Central Georgia Tech in a conference double-header with the men on Saturday, January 4th. The women will play at 1 p.m. followed by the men’s teams at 3 p.m. Then they travel to Andrew College on January 8th for a 5:30 p.m. conference match-up. The Jets will follow with a 7:30 game that same night in Cuthbert. Both teams then travel to Rome to face Georgia Highlands on January 11th at 2 p.m. and 4 p.m.