East Georgia State tops conference leading Chattahoochee Tech
In the biggest game in program’s young history, the #18-ranked East Georgia State College Bobcats pulled off a resounding 102-92 victory over the #9-ranked Chattahoochee Tech Golden Eagles and showed the rest of the country one thing: they are for real.
As a team that took a long time to finally even get top-25 consideration, the Bobcats were starting to close in on a top 10 spot with a 17-1 record and 9-0 in the conference heading into Wednesday’s colossal matchup against the Golden Eagles, who were 19-1 overall and 11-0 in the conference. The winner would take control of the conference all alone as well as continue to make themselves known on a national scale.
With the win, the Bobcats have done just that.
The game started out exactly like the Bobcats wanted as they jumped out to a 10-3 lead early thanks to a couple big three-point shots by Jordan Johnson, who was about to take center stage on the biggest night in team history thus far.
The teams would swap leads a couple of times midway through the first half, but the Bobcats went on a nice, big run to end the half and went into the locker room with a 43-28 lead. The defense held the Golden Eagles to just 33.3 percent shooting from the field in the first half. Offensively, they gave the ball to Jordan Johnson early and often as he had 21 first-half points.
The second half started out much the same way that the first half ended, with the Bobcats increasing their lead up to 22 (84-62) points. The team then thought they could go on cruise control the rest of the game, and the Golden Eagles got hot. All of a sudden, the shots that weren’t falling for the Golden Eagles early were starting the fall, and the lead began shrinking. The Golden Eagles were able to bring the score to within six at one point, but a couple an emphatic drunk by Jon Blair was followed by a three-point shot by Johnson, and the Bobcats were able to hold on to the ten-point victory.
Johnson led all scorers in this one with a career-high 38 points, including making eight three-pointers. He also had six rebounds, five assists, and three steals.
D.J. Felder scored 24 points with eight rebounds, one assist, and one steal. Brian Pearson was the stat sheet-filler for the night with six points, 10 rebounds, seven assists, one block, and three steals.
Tre Hagood scored four points with eight rebounds and eight assists. Larry Bullock put up 11 points including 3 three pointer. The Bobcats were also given a lift in the 2nd half by Coco Brown who is continuing his long road to recovery from a serious knee injury. Brown came up with a big basket and an assist in the big run.
Other than struggling from the free throw line (58.6 percent), the Bobcats may have put up their best performance of the season. The team came up big in a big game, something that championship teams do. Now the goal is to make sure we get the number one seed in the conference tournament by finishing the regular season strong.