SGTC dominates Lady Jets Tip-Off Classic and defeats Wallace State Lady Lions and Cape Fear Sea Devils

The South Georgia Technical College Lady Jets overcame an early 17 – 0 deficit to defeat the Wallace State Lady Lions 62 – 57 in the final game of the Lady Jets Tip-Off Classic tournament at the Hangar in Americus Saturday and Sunday.
The SGTC Lady Jets were seeded 11th in the nation in the NJCAA pre-season rankings. They dropped a narrow loss to Santa Fe College in their opening game in Florida last week, but now they have bounced back to 3 – 1 overall after defeating the Wallace State team and posting a decisive 82 – 61 win over the Cape Fear Lady Sea Devils in their opening match in the Lady Jets Tip-Off Classic.
In the other Tip-Off games, the Wallace State Lady Lions overpowered the Albany Tech Lady Titans, 99 – 75 and the Cape Fear Sea Devils came up with a 72 – 64 win over Albany Tech as well.
“We won but it was not pretty,” said South Georgia Technical College Athletic Director and Lady Jets head coach James Frey. “We missed too many easy lay-ups and turned the ball over too many times. We need to be more consistent in our shooting and take care of the ball better.”
Despite seeing room for improvement, Coach Frey did praise his team for not giving up. “We were down 17 – 0 in the Wallace State game but we fought back to pull within one point by the half. I was very proud of the way this team kept fighting and did not give up.”
After Wallace State opened the tournament with the 99 – 75 win over Albany Tech on Saturday, the Lady Jets coasted to an 82 – 61 win over the Cape Fear Lady Sea Devils. The Lady Jets started off slowly in that contest as well but had managed to pull ahead 19 – 15 at the end of the first quarter. They were still up 38 – 27 at the half. The Lady Jets outscored the Sea Devils 27 – 17 in the third quarter and captured the 82 – 61 victory.
Sophomore center Bigue Sarr from Daka, Senegal, lead the Lady Jets in scoring with 15 points. She also had seven rebounds. Freshman Center Laky Samo from Maputo, Mazambique, came off the bench to add 12 points and 10 rebounds, and sophomore guard Alyssa Nieves from Tampa, Florida, closed out the double-digit scoring with 10 points.
Sophomore forward Fatou Pouye and freshman Yasriyyah Wazeerud-Din both added nine points in that match-up. Pouye also was the leading rebounder with 14. Other Lady Jets who scored in that game included sophomore Ricka Jackson , freshman Amara Edeh from Nigeria, and sophomore Mari Hill with six points each. Kamya Hollingshed, a freshman from McDonough, GA contributed five points, Aubry Maulden, a sophomore from Darien, GA had three points, and Rio Yamazaki, a freshman from Japan closed out the scoring with one point and six assists.
The next day, Cape Fear bounced back and took a 72 – 64 victory over Albany Tech before the match-up between South Georgia Tech and Wallace State. Wallace State took a 17 – 0 lead over South Georgia Tech in that game and it was nearly four minutes before the Lady Jets managed to put any points on the board. The Lady Jets did come back in the final four minutes of the first quarter to cut the deficit to 20 – 11 and continued that streak to pull to within one point, 33 – 32 at the half.
Wallace State stretched their lead to 45 – 40 by the end of the third period but the Lady Jets rallied to outscore Wallace State 22 – 12 in the final period and take the 62 – 57 win. Sophomore forward Fatou Pouye scored 14 of her 22 points in the second half to lead the Lady Jets to victory. She also had nine rebounds on the day.
Sophomore Center Bigue Sarr of Dakar, Senegal, had a big night with 18 points and 10 rebounds. Sophomore forward Ricka Jackson closed out the double-digit scoring for the Lady Jets with 10 points and eight rebounds. Sophomore transfer Mari Hill from Aichi, Japan, came away with seven points and five assists, Alyssa Nieves had three points, and Amara Edeh closed out the scoring with two points.
“We have got to do a better job on layups and shooting the three pointer,” said Coach Frey. We were only two of 17 from the three-point line. That is less than 12 percent and we were only hitting 36 percent of our total field goals. We know we have some work ahead of us.”
The Lady Jets will play at home on Wednesday, November 14th when they host East Georgia State College in a conference match-up at 5:30 p.m. The Jets and Lady Jets will both play at home this weekend with the Jets hosting the Jets Classic on Friday, November 16th, and Saturday, November 17th, and the Lady Jets taking on Central Georgia Tech on Saturday at 5 p.m. as part of a double-header. The Jets Classic opens on Friday at 5:30 but the Jets will take on USC Salkahatchie at 7:30 p.m. Friday night and then Tallahassee Community College at 3 p.m. on Saturday prior to the Lady Jets game at 5 p.m.
That will wrap-up the Jets action until December 1st when they travel to Walterboro, SC to play USC Salkahatchie at 4 p.m. The Lady Jets will face Albany Technical College on November 20th in Americus at 5:30 p.m. and they travel to Georgia Highlands for a Thanksgiving Classic in Rome, Georgia, November 24th and 25th. They play Roane State at 2 p.m. on November 24th and Pensacola at 12 noon on November 25th in that tournament. They will return home for a Conference game against Southern Crescent Technical College at 1 p.m. on December 1st.

Sophomore center Bigue Sarr (21) led the Lady Jets in scoring against Cape Fear with 15 points.