Lady Dawgs Win

BASKETBALL

The Georgia women’s basketball team took the lead with 5:24 to play in the first half and never surrendered it on its way to a 70-53 win over Southern Mississippi Wednesday evening in Stegeman Coliseum.

The Lady Dawgs improve to 6-1 while the Lady Eagles fall to 3-3.

“This game was very much like the Southern Cal game,” said head coach Andy Landers. “We come out and guard on defense for 15-20 seconds, and they can’t get anything on us out of the half-court offense so we guard you a full 20-25 seconds. They shoot it and we rebound and run it down the floor, shoot a three, miss and don’t get the rebound and get back on defense. This is almost the same thing that happened at Southern Cal. We finally stopped jacking threes, settled down a little bit, and the whole game changed.”

“So far this year we’ve been pretty good on focusing on the other team’s best players and disrupting what they want to do," Landers said.

Georgia was led on the night by Jasmine James with 18 points, her fifth double-digit effort of the season. Freshman Ronika Ransford (11) and senior Porsha Phillips (10) joined James in double figures while both James and Meredith Mitchell dished six assists.

USM was paced by 16 points for Brittany Johnson and 13 for Tanesha Washington.

Following a very back-and-forth first half in which Georgia finally took hold of the lead on a Mitchell lay-in with 5:24 left, the Lady Dawgs settled down after halftime and started to take control.

Coming out of the locker room owning a five-point lead at 26-21, Georgia scored the first four of the second frame in just 15 seconds to go up by nine, 30-21. The Lady Dawgs took their first double-digit lead of the day on a three for James with 17:55 showing, making it 35-25. Ransford put in a reverse lay-up with 12:36 on the clock to push UGA in front by 13, 48-35, and with 8:07 to go James sent a perfect pass over the top to Phillips on a breakaway for an easy lay-up that made it a 15-point lead, 56-41.

Georgia strung together an 8-0 run up until the 3:56 mark, building their largest lead of 23, 66-43. After USM scored six straight to cut it back to 18, Hassell sent it back to 20, 69-49, following a solid passing series and going in for a lay-up as the clock read 1:14 and the assist going to Khaalidah Miller. It ended with a free throw for Anne Marie Armstrong as the Lady Dawgs came away with the 17-point win, 70-53, heading into Sunday’s intrastate showdown with Georgia Tech in Atlanta.

Georgia shot 61-percent from the floor in the second half to overcome the slow start. After scoring a season-low 26 first-half points, the Lady Dawgs’ 44-point output in the second half was its highest of the season after halftime.

The Lady Dawgs will be in Atlanta to take on the Yellow Jackets for Sunday’s 2 p.m. meeting, televised live on CSS.

Notes
•       Georgia now leads Southern Miss 2-0 in the series with the last win in Hattiesburg on Nov. 28 last season.
•       The Lady Dawgs are now seven wins shy of 800 all-time victories in intercollegiate play.
•       Andy Landers is now 12 wins shy of his 850th career victory as a collegiate head coach.
•       With three blocks in tonight’s game, Porsha Phillips now has 103 career blocks and moves to 10th on the Lady Dawgs overall career leaders. She passed the previous No. 10 Kara Braxton (102) and is only one shy of the current No. 9, 104 by Wanda Holloway.
•       Khaalidah Miller had a career-best three assists in a career-high 26 minutes.
•       Ronika Ransford posted career highs for both points (11) and rebounds (six).

Double-Digit Lady Bulldogs

•       Porsha Phillips reached double figures for the sixth time this season and the 43rd time in her career.
•       Jasmine James reached double figures for the fifth time this season and the 23rd time in her career.
•       Ronika Ransford reached double figures for the first time this season and in her career.