Lady Dawgs Defeat Cats

BASKETBALL

Freshman Khaalidah Miller scored a career-high 24 points and Porsha Phillips added a double-double of 13 points and 11 rebounds to lead Georgia (12-3, 2-0 SEC) to a 61-59 victory over No. 10 Kentucky (11-4, 0-2) on Sunday afternoon.

Miller connected on 10-of-14 shots from the floor, including 4-of-5 from three-point range. Meredith Mitchell chipped in 13 points, six rebounds, three steals, two assists and a pair of blocks.

Victoria Dunlap led Kentucky with 17 points, and A'dia Mathies contributed 17.

Georgia shot 50 percent for the game and limited the Wildcats to 29.5 percent.

"I thought we showed flashes of brilliance but we've got to be more consistent," Andy Landers said. "Defensively, we were very good. We held a Kentucky team that averages nearly 80 points to under 60."

The Lady Dawgs never trailed from the 11:57 mark of the first half but withstood five ties in the second half.

The Lady Dawgs used a 13-0 run to gain the game's first substantial lead at 25-14 with 5:43 on the clock. Anne Marie Armstrong scored five of the first seven points in the surge that covered 8:07.

A Dunlap jumper inside the key ended the spurt and ignited an 8-0 Kentucky run over the next 3:36 that pulled the Wildcats within 25-22 with 2:26 left in the half.

Georgia responded with a 9-2 run of its own that pushed the Lady Dawgs back to a 33-24 advantage with under a minute left in the period before Kentucky scored the final five points of the stanza to make it 33-29 at intermission.

The contest marked the third time this season that Georgia built a substantial first-half road lead but couldn't maintain the margin. The Lady Dawgs led by 11 at Southern Cal and 16 at TCU before allowing both teams to close those gaps at the break.

Kentucky finally knotted the score at 43-43 after Brittany Henderson put back a Keyla Dunlap missed free throw with 9:29 left.

Miller answered with a long two but the Wildcats immediately tied the score at 45-45. Miller then hit a three-pointer, but Kentucky answered with a triple of its own.

A Phillips three at the 6:06 mark put Georgia up 51-48 and the Lady Dawgs gradually built a 56-50 lead with 3:41. Kentucky again rallied and tied the game at 56-56 on a Dunlap layup just over a minute later.

Miller canned yet another three-pointer and Ronika Ransford put in a breakaway layup to put Georgia up 61-58. Dunlap missed the second of two free throws with 34 seconds left to make it 61-59.

The Lady Dawgs turned the ball over with 25 seconds left but forced a missed layup by Mathies. After Ransford missed the front end of a one-and-one with 6.6 seconds left, but Mathies driving layup rimmed out as time expired.

"We need to continue to develop out depth," Landers said. "I'd like to have eight players I could consider starters. I think we need to be able to go to the bench more and be better and more productive when we do. I think fatigue entered some of our errors toward the end."

The victory marked the second top-10 home winning streak Georgia has ended this season. Kentucky had won 25 straight at Memorial Coliseum dating back to a Lady Dawg victory there two seasons ago. That was the seventh longest current streak. On December 22, Georgia snapped a 27-game home string at TCU which at the time was fourth longest in the nation.

Georgia will travel to Arkansas on Thursday for a CSS regionally televised matchup that tips off at 9 p.m. ET.

The Lady Dawgs will then return home to host Florida next Sunday at 2 p.m. at Stegeman Coliseum. The first 1,000 kids (8th grade and below) in attendance will receive a Lady Dawg Basketball puzzle.