Jets fall to 1 – 7 after narrow 73 – 71 loss to Chipola

   The South Georgia Technical College Jets fell to 1 – 7 on the season after a disappointing 73 – 71 loss to the 18^th nationally ranked Chipola College Indians, (6 – 1), whose only loss this season was to the Jets in October at Chipola.

   “This was a tough one.  We played hard and executed our game plan for 38 of 40 minutes,” said SGTC Jets Head Coach Chris Ballauer. “It shows that against good teams, we have to finish the drill.  We have shown this season we can play with the top teams in the country and we can win.  I am proud of the guys for how hard we played and feel for them for how the game ended.”

   The Jets were up by five points, 68 – 63, with 1:44 remaining.  But over the course of 41 seconds, Chipola closed the gap and tied the game at 68 – 68 with 1:03 on the clock.  They scored a three-pointer with 23 seconds remaining to go up 68 – 71.

   Jalexs Ewing took a three-point shot for the Jets with 8.1 seconds remaining to try and tie the game.  He missed but was fouled.  He went to the line and made two of the three shots to close the game to 70 – 71.  Chipola came back to go ahead 70 – 73 with five seconds remaining.  The Jets went to the free throw line with 2.4 seconds and made one shot and tried to get a rebound on the second shot but failed and the game ended with Chipola up 71-73.

   South Georgia Tech was up 32 – 29 at the end of the first half but Chipola outscored the Jets 44 – 39 in the second half to take the win.  The Jets hit 17 of 24 free throw attempts for a 70.8% success rate.  They only hit 23.5% (4/17) three-point attempts and hit 25 – 59 two-point attempts (42.4%).

   Sophomore starter Jalexs Ewing led the Jets in scoring with 22 points.  He was joined in double-figures by freshman Guilliaume Schoentgen from Germany.  Schoentgen had 18 points and six rebounds.  Freshman guard Marcellus Myles from Thomaston, GA, came away with nine points, and freshman guard Jarius Davis from Greensboro, NC, added eight points.

   Also scoring for the Jets were:  Clark Mastin from Conyers with 6 points, sophomore Dwight Brown from Conyers with five points, freshman Jeremy Nixon from Lakeland with 2 and sophomore Marc Ferdy of the Congo with one point.  Ferdy was also the leading rebounder with 10.

  This was the seventh consecutive loss for the Jets.  Two of those losses were by three points or less.  Over the weekend, the Jets played in the Eastern Florida Classic and dropped a 94 – 81 game to Indian River State College and a narrow 70 – 67 decision to Eastern Florida State College.  Freshman point guard Clark Maston was the top scorer for the Jets against Indian River with 22 points.  Jalexs Ewing led the Jets in scoring against Eastern Florida with 22 points.

   The Jets will try to break the losing streak this weekend in the Sparky Reeves Classic.  They will face North East Mississippi at 8 p.m., Friday, November 21^st.  Eastern Florida will play East Georgia State in the opening game Friday at 6 p.m.  Then on Saturday, the Jets will have a rematch with Eastern Florida at 3 p.m. and East Georgia State and North East Mississippi will kick off the action at 1 p.m.

   “We have a great weekend of college basketball with two teams coming from out of the state: Eastern Florida, who are receiving votes to the top 25, and Northeast Mississippi, who is just outside of receiving votes for the top 25.  They are joined by East Georgia as the forth team.  I am really excited to have these really good teams to come to South Georgia Tech for some southern hospitality.”