Lady Dawgs Win Streak Snapped

BASKETBALL

South Carolina snapped No. 20 Georgia's seven-game overall and five-game road winning streaks on Thursday night, defeating the Lady Dawgs 57-48 at Colonial Life Arena.

After Georgia (16-4, 6-1 SEC) failed on an attempt to tie the game with 5:41 remaining, the Gamecocks (12-9, 4-4 SEC) outscored the Lady Dawgs 14-7 the rest of the way.

Jasmine James led Georgia with 15 points, while Porsha Phillips added 10 points and a game-high nine rebounds. Courtney Newton paced South Carolina with 16 points, including a 5-of-5 effort from three-point range.

"She was 5-of-5 from three-point range, which was money," head coach Andy Landers said. "Right there, she accounted for more than 25 percent of their offense for the entire game with five shots."

Meredith Mitchell missed an elbow jumper with South Carolina leading 43-41, and Newton answered with a three on the other end to extend the margin to five. Georgia never got within a single possession the rest of the game.

Neither team gained much of an advantage in the first 20 minutes.

The Lady Dawgs started the contest with a 6-1 lead to secure the largest edge of either team in the half before South Carolina answered with an 8-0 run to earn its biggest lead of the period at 9-6.

The half eventually featured two ties and five lead changes, lastly when the Gamecocks went ahead 25-23 on a three by Ieasia Walker with 35 seconds left to provide the final points of the stanza.

"I really thought we missed some chances early that could have put us up," Landers said. "We missed some really good looks inside and some times we settled for 10- or 12-foot jumpers when we probably could have gotten closer to the hole."

Phillips moved past the 1,000-point scoring mark early in the second half. She knocked down a 12-foot jumper with 15:34 remaining in the game to surpass 1,000. Phillips scored 143 points as a freshman at LSU in 2006-07 and has now scored 860 in her three seasons at Georgia.

The Lady Dawgs will travel to Baton Rouge to face LSU in at 5 p.m. in an ESPN2 nationally televised contest. After that, Georgia will return to Athens for a three-game home-stand with games against Arkansas, Alabama and Vanderbilt.

Reserved seat tickets for the Lady Dawg games are $5 for adults and $3 for children. Those are available at the Butts-Mehre ticket office from 8:30-4:30 Monday-Friday and via the internet at www.georgiadogs.com. In addition, tickets will go on sale at the Stegeman Coliseum box office (on the side of arena closest to Sanford Drive) beginning 90 minutes before tip-off.