Men snap four-game losing skid with 66-58 victory over Saints

On Feb. 2, the Georgia College men’s basketball team was at home to face North Georgia.

The Bobcats were first to take the lead when less than a minute in, junior forward Ryan Aquino sank a jumper to give them the 2-0 lead.

Once Georgia College took control of the game, they continued to spread the point gap.

When exactly 10 minutes remained in the first half, the Bobcats managed to first extend their lead by more than 10 points, when senior forward Reece Wiedeman, with an assist from sophomore guard Ryan Legates, made a powerful dunk that got the crowd roaring and gave Georgia College an 18-9 lead.

Although the Saints attempted to take control of the game, they were unable to decrease the point gap and Georgia College defeated North Georgia with a final score of 66-58.

As the first half began to draw near an end, when the Bobcats took a 27-12 lead from a free throw shot from Wiedeman with 6:05 remaining, the Saints began to step their game up.

North Georgia managed to score 16 points in the next five minutes compared to the Bobcats three points scored to make a close game with the score at 30-28.

When 34 seconds remained in the half, junior forward Mike Augustine drained a three-pointer to to secure a 33-28 going into halftime.

For the first half, the highest scorer for Georgia College was Wiedeman, who scored 10 points in the first half. Wiedeman was 4-6 on field goals and 2-4 on free throws.

“The key component in tonight’s win was rebounding. Rebounding has seemed to in be the factor of why we were losing the last few games,” Wiedeman said. “But tonight it was kept in in the game the whole time and what caught our lead.”

Seconding Wiedeman’s effort in points scored was Aquino, scoring nine points with a record of 4-8 on field goals and 1-2 on three-pointers.

Aquino was also the leading rebounder in the first half, with three offensive and three defensive rebounds.

At the start of the second half, the Bobcats began to increase their point gap, and at 13:45 a layup made by Wiedeman gave Georgia College a 45-37 advantage.

However, as the clock began to run out, North Georgia once again began to catch up to the Bobcats.

When 3:58 remained in the game, the Saints were only trailing Georgia College by two points with the score at 54-52.

Determined to keep their lead over North Georgia, the Bobcats continued to play aggressively and increase their lead to 61-52 with 1:15 remaining.

“It was a big win, especially coming off of four straight losses,” Aquino said. “This was a talented team and I think we all felt that it was a must-win situation. We couldn’t keep on losing close games. Hopefully it sparks us to keep winning, beginning with this Saturday.”

This victory brought the Bobcats’ four game losing streak to an end.

Georgia College is on the road this weekend to face Clayton State on Saturday at 5 p.m. in a critical PBC matchup.

“I thought we played well as a unit. There’s always room for improvement and we’re going down the home stretch now so hopefully we’ll peak at the right time and start playing our best basketball,” Head Coach Terry Sellers said. “We’re just going to continue to work on the things that we’ve been working on since day one. There’s no secrets at this point, we’ve just got to try to improve in all areas.”

For more information on the game and stats for all Bobcats Athletics, please visit gcsubobcats.com.