SGTC Jets defeat Gordon State College
The South Georgia Technical College Jets came away with a 71 – 61 victory over Gordon State College Saturday. The Jets have now won three of their last four games in the regular season and finished the year in 7th place in the Georgia College Athletic Association standings. The Jets are 6 – 10 in conference and 13 – 17 overall.
As the seventh ranked team in the GCAA for the 2019 – 2020 season, the South Georgia Technical College Jets will advance to the NJCAA Region XVII Tournament quarterfinals. They will travel to Rome to take on the second-place Georgia Highlands team. That game will kick off at 7:30 p.m., Tuesday, March 3rd. The winner will advance to the semi-final round which will be held at the highest remaining seeded team on Saturday, March 6th at 8 p.m. The finals will be on Sunday, March 7th at 3 p.m.
Central Georgia Tech finished the regular season in the number one spot and they will take on the eighth-seeded East Georgia State College team at 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 3rd. In other games, fourth-ranked Albany Tech will host fifth-seeded Andrew College at 7 p.m. and third-ranked South Georgia State College will host sixth-ranked Gordon State College. Only the winners will advance to the next round.
The Jets started off the night against Gordon State College on a good note. They were up 41 – 26 at the end of the first half and that 16-point lead gave the Jets the cushion they needed to secure the 71 – 61 victory. The Jets lost to Gordon 53 – 50 in overtime in their first match-up this season.
Sophomore Justin Johnson led the Jets in scoring with 17 points, eight rebounds, two steals, one assist and one blocked shot. He was the only member of the Jets to score in double-digits. Sophomore Jaylan McKinney posted up nine points and Jonathan Kanyanga and Jarius Carroll both added eight points each. Kanyanga also pulled down five rebounds and had three blocked shots.
Sophomore Toriano Lewis and Tabais Long each added six points, DJ Fisher had five points and Merby Bata scored four points. Lamont Sanders and Brice Paster each contributed three points and then Emmanuel Nwaneri closed out the scoring with two points.
The Jets will be hoping to improve on their seven place seed by upsetting Georgia Highlands in the first round of the NJCAA Region XVII tournament. South Georgia Technical College and Georgia Highlands have met twice this season. In the first game, Georgia Highlands took a 73 – 66 win in Rome and then the Jets closed that seven-point gap to only four points when they lost 70 – 66 in Americus in mid-February.
Georgia Highlands is 22 – 7 overall and 13 – 3 in the conference. They are averaging 90.8 points per game and hitting 49% of their field goals along with 35% of their three-point attempts and 67 percent of their foul shots. They are also averaging 42 rebounds per game.
The Jets are only averaging 74 points per game and are shooting 41% from the field. They have hit 31% of their three point attempts and are a 67% free throw shooting team. They average 36 rebounds per game.