Lady Jets wake up in second half vs Andrew

Local Sports

February 9, 2010

Chris Whitaker

CUTHBERT — The Lady Jets found themselves in a predicament that most GJCAA teams haven't dealt with this season.

They were trailing Andrew College late in the first half.

The Lady Jets managed to take a 24-22 lead into the locker room before reviving the offense to leave with a 71-38 win.

Dee Smith scored a game-high 20 points to go with eight rebounds, 2 blocks and two steals. Monique Willis scored 14 with 13 rebounds and six steals, and Zsoka Ruttner added 14 with two blocks and two steals.

"We played like crap the first half and played pretty decent in the second half," said coach Brandan Harrell. "We just didn't do anything the first 20 minutes. We missed a bunch of real easy open looks, and we didn't do a good job against their zone at all. We didn't play defense, we just didn't do anything. They thought we'd show up and have a 30-point lead at the half and we didn't."

South Georgia Tech (22-5, 8-1) shot 40 percent for the game, but was 11 of 23 from the free-throw line. The Lady Jets' defense held Andrew to 25 percent shooting; it was 14 of 27 in free throws.

beat Andrew 100-31 in the teams' first meeting at The Hangar. Harrell said he didn't know if this could be a wakeup call for the Lady Jets. They've been up and down the past few games, and Harrell said after Saturday's win against Atlanta Metro that some of the poor play might catch up with them.

"Give Andrew a lot of credit," said Harrell. "They came out and hit us in the mouth for most of the first half."

Andrew managed three field goals in the second half while making 10 free throws.

"We just played with some intensity defensively," said Harrell. "We got some scores in transition and knocked down a few shots."