Jets fall to Georgia Highlands in NJCAA Region XVII tournament quarter-finals

Less than a week after defeating Georgia Highlands on a last-second old-fashioned three-point play, the South Georgia Technical College Jets dropped a 71 – 69 decision to the Chargers in the quarter-final round of the 2025 National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) Region XVII end of the season tournament.
The fifth seeded Georgia Highlands squad upset the fourth-ranked Jets and earned the right to advance to semi-final round of the playoffs which will be held at top-ranked South Georgia State College in Waycross. Georgia Highlands will play South Georgia State at 8 p.m. on Friday, March 14th after third ranked Gordon State College matches up against East Georgia State College at 6 p.m.
South Georgia State College came away with a 97 – 60 win over Andrew College while Gordon State defeated Central Georgia Tech 73 – 64, and East Georgia took a 72 – 64 victory over Albany Tech in the other quarter-final match-ups.
The loss to Georgia Highlands ended the 2024 – 2025 season for the SGTC Jets. They wound up fourth in the Georgia Collegiate Athletic Association (GCAA) regular season with a 9 – 7 record. The Jets were 12 – 19 overall this season.
Poor shooting and a high number of turnovers proved to be the downfall for the Jets who were up by 13 points in the first half before Georgia Highlands rallied and pulled within eight at the half, 39 – 31. Georgia Highlands outscored the Jets 40 – 30 in the second half to clinch the 71 – 69 victory.
Georgia Highlands outscored the Jets 14 – 0 in about five minutes from 16:18 to 10:56 in the second half. The Chargers pulled ahead 49 – 48 with 10:56 remaining in the game. The Jets were able to recapture the lead with 7:13 remaining in the game and tied the game at 59 – 59 with six minutes remaining. After that Georgia Highlands never relinquished the lead.
Despite being down by two-points in the final two-minutes, the Jets had numerous attempts to tie or pull ahead. But turnovers and missed shots left them trailing by two at the buzzer. SGTC had a one-if-one free throw with 26.1 seconds remaining and had two other opportunities from the field and foul line but Georgia Highlands scored with 8.1 seconds to go up by four points. Dwight Brown made two free throws for the Jets with 3.1 seconds and the Jets were able to regain the ball but couldn’t convert before the buzzer sounded.
South Georgia Tech only hit two of 17 three-point attempts. They were one of seven in the first half shooting 14.3% and then only hit one of 10 in the second half to finish the night with an 11.8% success rate from the three-point line. They also missed lots of shots from the field. They were 23 of 46 on the night and then were only 17 of 31 from the foul line for a 54.8% success rate.
Freshman guard Jalexs Ewing led the Jets in scoring with 20 points. Jordan Dickson followed with 16 points and Hendrens Bartelus was the only other Jet in double figures with 13 points. Daryl Bod ended the night with eight points, Dwight Brown contributed seven points and then Matt Mbole and Aiden Fitzgerald had three and two points respectively.