GC&SU splits rivalry series

Last week, ESPN touted its annual “Rivalry Week” by focusing on such tilts as Kentucky-Florida and Duke-North Carolina in men’s action, and U Conn-Tennessee on the women’s side.
The Peach Belt Conference, on the other hand, had its “Rivalry Wednesday,” with all six doubleheaders being played as natural geographic rivalries, such as Kennesaw State-Clayton State, Armstrong Atlantic State-North Florida, and Wednesday night’s match-up at the Centennial Center between Georgia College & State University and Columbus State University.

Women

The 18th-ranked Lady Bobcats won their fourth straight game with a 69-55 win over the Lady Cougars, while CSU earned the split in the men’s contest with a 91-78 win over the Bobcats.
The women’s game started with Latia Love scoring the game’s first points on a lay-up. CSU (10-11, 5-6 Peach Belt Conference) quickly responded by reeling six unanswered points to take a 6-2 lead just 2:18 into the contest.
Antionette Long, who finished with a game-high of 17 points, made two free throws after being fouled by Erin Gibbs to narrow the deficit to 6-4. Then, just 20 seconds after making one of two free throws on another Columbus State foul, Long gave GC&SU (18-4, 7-4) a lead of 7-6 on another lay-up with 15:32 remaining.
CSU then tied the game on several more occasions, the last at 24-24 with 4:19 to go before GC&SU scored the half’s last six points to lead 30-24 at halftime.
The Lady Bobcats opened the second half on a 10-2 run to widen the lead to 40-26 with 16:12 left in the contest. Then a jumper by Kirsti Jones with 14:05 remaining gave GC&SU its largest advantage of the night at 45-28.
The Lady Cougars managed to narrow the gap to 10 points on numerous occasions, but couldn’t get any closer, as GC&SU held on to move within one game of first place in the PBC South.
In a battle for first place in Jacksonville, Fla. Wednesday night, North Florida (19-3) edged Armstrong Atlantic State (17-5) 62-61 to pull even in the division at 8-3 in league play.
Head Coach John Carrick thought that good defense throughout the season contributed to Wednesday’s win.
“I think that (defense) was what won (games) for us all year long,” said Carrick. “You got to keep (CSU) off the boards, or you’re in a deep amount of trouble.”
While both teams grabbed 37 rebounds each, GC&SU held the slight edge in the offensive category, out-rebounding CSU 13-10.
Love did her part in leading the Lady Bobcats to victory, finishing with 16 points, while Jones had nine points and a game-high of five assists.

Men

In the men’s game, things managed to start off well for the Bobcats, with the home team jumping out to a 5-0 lead, less than two minutes into the contest. CSU (15-6, 8-3 Peach Belt Conference) got on track, outscoring GC&SU 13-7 over a span of almost three and a half minutes to take its first lead at 13-12, with 14:36 left in the first half on a trey by De Shawn Bowman.
A 13-2 run over the next four and a half minutes gave the Cougars a 26-14 lead with 10:03 to go. But GC&SU fought back in the half’s final ten minutes, outscoring CSU 27-16 during that span to trail 42-41 at halftime.
The second half started with the Bobcats (6-16, 3-8) taking a 43-42 lead on a pair of Willie Francis free throws with 18:48 to go. Things quickly went downhill from there, as the Cougars seemed to shoot almost one trey after another, and held the Bobcats to just two points over more than a four minute span to balloon the CSU lead to 61-45 with 14:44 to go.
A timeout called by Head Coach Terry Sellers did very little to stop the slide, as another three-pointer by Bowman gave the Cougars a 67-47 lead with 12:29 left in regulation.
A three-pointer by Cooper Sellers put GC&SU within 13 points at 86-73, but couldn’t narrow it down any further, as the Cougars held on for the road win.
Kevin Benn had one of his best games as a Bobcat, finishing with a team-high 20 points on seven of 10 shooting, while Garren Williams added 17 points, followed by Stephone Washington with ten points. However, Columbus State had a torrid performance dialing long distance, connecting on 18 of 36 three-pointers for 50 percent, including 10 of 15 in the second half for 66.7 percent.
CSU’s Yandel Brown led all scorers with 25 points, followed by Bowman with 22 points, Kendrick Jones with 12 points, and Akeem Francis with 10 points.
Both GC&SU teams return home to face Clayton State University this Saturday, before traveling to Savannah next Wednesday to face Armstrong Atlantic State University.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Feb 13 2004. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry