The Lady Chargers suffered a potentially season-ending loss, 76-67, at home to South Georgia Tech on Tuesday during the first round of the Georgia Collegiate Athletic Association tournament.
Although the loss knocked the Lady Chargers out of the tourney, the GHC women could still conceivably receive an at-large bid to the NJCAA tournament.
The bids are scheduled to come out on Sunday.
Either way, Tuesday’s loss was disappointing for the Lady Chargers, who entered the tourney with high hopes.
The team has produced numerous notable victories during their inaugural season, and was looking to add some more memories to the list this week.
“(South Georgia Tech) just did a tremendous job,” said Lady Chargers coach Brandon Harrell.
“It comes down to a one game deal. A lot of factors can go on, and today they were just better than we were.”
The Lady Chargers, who had beaten South Georgia Tech twice during the regular season, were unable to fend off the Lady Jets for a third time despite 20 points from Gabrielle Kendall.
The Lady Jets came out strong and took an early lead in the first half, but their momentum was quickly halted.
The Lady Chargers rallied back and took the lead with 15:45 to go in the first half.
GHC stretched the lead the seven points late in the first half until the Lady Jets caught up enough to enter the second half with a 35-32 edge over the Lady Chargers.
The Lady Jets started the second half with a 15-4 scoring run that stretched their lead to 14 points — the largest lead of the game — with 12:02 left to play.
Although a little scratch-and-claw allowed the Lady Chargers to outscore the Lady Jets 31-26 for the rest of the game, the early second-half scoring run sustained South Georgia Tech to the win.
The Lady Jets will travel to Darton for the conference semifinals on Mar. 1.
“They made plays, and we didn’t make plays,” said Harrell. “Their game plan was probably a lot better than our game plan, and their kids did a great job of making plays.”
Gabreille Kendall led GHC with 20 points. Shakierya McClendon had 18 and Seandre Lee posted 15.
For South Georgia Tech Portia McCray posted 21 points and Rasheda Patterson had 17 points, with 15 of them coming from 3-pointers.
Although the Lady Chargers had an extremely successful inaugural season, Harrell and his team left the game still hungry for a championship.
“We always want to compete for conference championships,” said Harrell. “We thought we were in position this year to go compete for a conference championship, and that’s our goal every year.”
“What we’ll do now is we’ll go out and try to find players that will allow us to come back next year and be as competitive as we were this year. That’s our plan.
“We hope this is the last time we lose in the first round. It’s very disappointing, but it’s time to go back to work.”
Post a Comment
