Chris Whitaker
SALINA, Kan. — Brandan Harrell knew his Lady Jets needed a strong start to compete with the second-ranked team in the country.
Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.
South Georgia Tech, which entered as the No. 15 seed, fell behind 22-4 and never recovered in a 79-53 loss against Gulf Coast in the opening round of the NJCAA Tournament.
“We just came out tight, and heck, I don’t know if they missed a shot the first five minutes,” said Harrell. “They were open because we didn’t guard them; we didn’t guard anybody. I called two timeouts early and told them to get back and get the ball stopped, and we didn’t. We never got it stopped.”
SGTC will play No. 7 seed North Idaho in an elimination game at 10 a.m. Thursday. North Idaho lost to Monroe (N.Y.) 63-58.
Monique Willis led SGTC with 15 points and 16 rebounds. Ophelia McMath added 14 points and nine rebounds, and Reka Ruttner and Brittani Jones each had seven. GJCAA Player of the Year Dee Smith was held to five points on 2 of 14 shooting.
The Lady Jets shot 27 percent (21-78) for the game while the Lady Commodores finished at 43.5 percent (30-69) after shooting 54 percent in the first half.
A lot of SGTC’s misses came in the paint, and Harrell said they had to miss 10-12 layups.
“They were with no one around us,” he said. “If we made half of those — I wouldn’t say we’d win — but we’d at least make it respectable.
“When we got down that much early, we’d start pressuring and taking bad shots. The absolute worst thing that could happen happened, and we never recovered. I knew a couple of things had to happen for us to play well. We had to catch them on an off night, and we didn’t; we had to make some shots, and we didn’t; and we need to catch some breaks, and we didn’t.”
The Lady Jets were held without a field goal for more than five minutes as the Lady Commodores went on a 10-0 run to take a 22-4 lead. They finished the final 5:13 of the half on a 14-5 run.
Gulf Coast led 53-22 at intermission, the most points allowed by SGTC in a first half this season.
The closest the Lady Jets got in the second half was 73-49 with 4:51 remaining.
The Lady Commodores shot 30 percent (9-30) in the second half and the tempo was more to the liking of the Lady Jets.
“We forced them into halfcourt situations, and we didn’t do that at all in the first half,” said Harrell. “They shot 54 percent; they got the rebound and put back, and it felt like they scored every trip down. We did a better job in the second half, but I’m sure it had a lot to do with them not having as much fire in the second half. When you’re up 30 at the half, it takes some fire out of you.”
Harrell did say things would have been done differently if he had a do-over when it came to strategy. Instead of specific matchups, he said he’d focus more on stopping Gulf Coast’s transition offense.
For Gulf Coast, Andrea Smith, the Panhandle Conference Player of the Year, scored 20 points to go with six rebounds and four assists. Andrell Smith added 15, and Angie Felton scored 11.
Harrell hadn’t reviewed the notes on North Idaho as of early Monday evening, but the team’s next opponents stands out ... or stands up.
“They’re tall, really tall,” said Harrell. “They’re a good team; very fundamentally sound. They shoot the three well and have got a couple of really good guards.”
