South Georgia State Betters Central Tech, Halting Two Game Skid
(Feb. 12, 2022) Macon, GA – With their 64-57 defeat of Central Georgia Tech, the Hawks stay alive in the Georgia Collegiate Athletic Association race, but with absolutely no wiggle room.
South Georgia scored the first ten points of the game, but Central Georgia Tech closed out the half with an 8-0 spurt to a take a lead into halftime, 25-23. It wasn’t to be though, as Tech couldn’t hold off the Hawks second half burst (41-32) yielding the final seven point margin. The loss puts the Titans at 13-9, 4-7.
The Hawks, leading 51-36 at the nine minute mark, saw their advantage reduced to 6 on two occasions, the last with 1:32 to play. But a Jayce Moore triple with just about a minute to play wrecked the Jets comeback.
Moore topped the charts for SGSC piling up 17 points, 8 rebounds and 3 takeaways. Zae Wiggins popped for 13 with 4 assists. Moore also led the team with 3 steals.
For the Titans, Roderick Jones provided game high 21 points, going 11-14 from the line. Sunny Diamond completed play with 17 points, 8 boards and 5 helpers. Mark Vance, Jr also had 8 rebounds.
CGTC was plus seven on the glass, but committed over twice as many ball handling errors as the winners.
South Georgia Sate (19-7, 8-4) has the slimmest of chances to still win the Conference Title, however, it will require the Hawks to win their four remaining game (all GCAA opponents), and a lot of help from others to knock off conference leader Georgia Highlands (17-8, 10-1).
Highlands has five conference games left, with four of the five against the other top tier teams. Except for Gordon State, the others left on the Chargers schedule are all at .500 or above in the conference standings.
In the four games left for South Georgia, only East Georgia State (5-5) and Georgia Highlands are in the top half of the standings.
Georgia Highlands and South Georgia do get together on Thursday in Rome. However, tied with the Hawks in conference is South Georgia Tech at 8-4. Being in the same position as State, they also need a miracle.
The Hawks and the Jets do not play each other going forward, but South Tech does have a game remaining with Georgia Highlands, just like South State.
It’s a long shot for either 2nd place teams to catch or pass GHC for the league’s regular season title, but a long shot is certainly better than no shot. The Chargers currently have the tie-breaker over South State, but South Tech possesses the same advantage over GHC. Remember, top seed going into post season has the inside track to home court for the Region 17 tournament semis and finals.
Central Tech plays at South Tech on Thursday.
