Six South Georgia Technical College Lady Jets were named to the Georgia Collegiate Athletic Association (GCAA) Division I All-Academic basketball team for the 2019 – 2020 season announced GCAA Executive Director David Elder.
The six South Georgia Technical College Lady Jets who earned this distinction included: Amarah Edeh, Niya Goudelock, Oumy Gueye, Anna McKendree, Shamari Tyson, and Yasriyyah Wazeerud-Din.
In order to be eligible, a student-athlete must be a sophomore with a minimum of three full-time terms and a minimum of a 3.0 cumulative GPA. Only 22 players in the GCAA earned this recognition from the men’s and women’s basketball teams.
“I am very proud of these young ladies,” said South Georgia Technical College Athletic Director and Lady Jets head coach James Frey. “These students put in many hours of hard work on the basketball court but they are just as diligent with their school work. This is what helps create a winning program – smart players who realized the importance of hard work on and off the court. Basketball is important but the education that these student gain will be valuable long after they retire from this sport.”
That statement bears even more weight in the light of the NJCAA cancellation of the basketball championships as well as spring competitions effective immediately due to recent recommendations from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
“I feel for these Lady Jets,” said Coach Frey. “Obviously we are all disappointed that we won’t have the opportunity to represent the Georgia Collegiate Athletic Association (GCAA) at the national tournament. But because these young ladies did what they needed to do on the court and in the classroom, we should be able to make sure each of our sophomore student-athletes end up at the four-year schools they deserve.”
These six Lady Jets helped lead their team to the best record ever in the history of the men’s and women’s basketball programs at South Georgia Technical College with a 30 – 2 overall record. They won the GCAA regular season title for the fifth consecutive season, captured their fourth consecutive NJCAA Region XVII Tournament title, fourth consecutive District J Championship and were headed to the NJCAA National Tournament for the fourth consecutive year. They ended the second ranked 11th in the nation.
Sophomore Yasriyyah Wazeerud-Din, a shooting forward from Marietta, Georgia, was one of the six sophomores from South Georgia Technical College named to the team. She led the team in scoring with an average of 15.1 points per game. She hit 75% of her free-throws and 45% of her three point attempts. She also averaged 5.9 rebounds per game along with 3.1 assists and 3.2 steals.
She was joined on the All-Academic team by Shamari Tyson, a sophomore from Fort Wayne, IN. She was the second leading scoring for the Lady Jets and averaged 14.4 points per game along with 5.5 rebounds, 5.5 assists and 2.9 steals. Sophomore Anna McKendree was the third Lady Jet who posted in double-digits this season. The 5’ 6” guard from Flowery Branch, GA, averaged 13.3 points per game. She hit 67% of her free throws and 42% of her three-point attempts. She also had 4.4 rebounds per game, 3.2 assists, and 3.4 steals per game.
The other three Lady Jets on the All-Academic team included Niya Goudelock, a 5’ 7” guard from Gaffney, SC, and two international players. Goudelock played her freshman season at Limestone University. As a sophomore at SGTC, Goudelock averaged 9.5 points, 4.8 rebounds, 3.7 assists, and 2.9 steals.
The two international players on the All-Academic team were Amara Edeh, a 5’ 11’ forward from Nigeria and OUmy Gueye, a 5’ 11” forward from Senegal. Edeh averaged 4.8 points, and 4.5 rebounds while Oumy Gueye scored an average of 3.8 points and had 2.8 rebounds each game.