Darton women roll past Albany Tech

ALBANY — When the Albany Tech Lady Titans hosted the Darton State Lady Cavaliers Saturday evening at the Albany State University HPER Gymnasium, it was a matchup of two teams that were polar opposites.

Darton entered with an impressive 10 -1 record and have been winning games with ease. Albany Tech had a modest three wins on the season and is still trying to find its way this season.

It still made for a competitive game as the cross-town rivals faced each other for the first time this season. It was Darton that came out on top, winning 80-44.

The game started with a 6-0 run by Darton and Albany Tech missing its first four shots. The Lady Titans strung together a couple of baskets and made it an 11-6 game.

They would follow that slight run up with a near 10-minute drought and the deficit swelled to 21-6. However, the Lady Titans still remained persistent and ended the half with a 12-10 run to make it 36-22 at the break.

“First half is the kind of half we would like to have,” Albany Tech coach Kenneth Williams said. “We were down, but we pretty much got what we wanted in the first half.”

It wouldn’t carry over into the second half as Darton went on an 11-5 run to start. The Lady Titans were never able to recover.

“Defensively, we just weren’t focused at all in the second half,” Williams said. “And our offense feeds off our defense. If we’re not playing real good defense, we’re giving up open shots, our offense suffers tremendously and that’s what happened in the second half.”

They were able to somewhat contain Shanea Armbrister. She had a relatively quiet night by her standards, finishing with 23 points and just three rebounds. Tamarah Fisher picked up the slack, leading all scorers with 25 points to go along with 11 rebounds. Jesalynn Mahone also finished with a double-double, scoring 10 points and grabbing 11 rebounds.

As well the Lady Cavs played, they struggled mightily at the free throw line, finishing 20 for 42.

“We did everything else well except shoot free throws,” Darton head coach Lea Henry said. “So we can go back and we can work on that. That’s correctable. I think it just became mental and we were being tough on them about it. I thought we played well outside of that.”

Kayla Bowens led the Lady Titans in scoring with 13 points and also had five rebounds and three assists. Satashala Beasley led the team in rebounds with 10.

The Lady Titans are done for the rest of 2014, while the Lady Cavs have a Christmas tournament in Panama City, Fla. this week.

ALBANY TECH MEN 69, SOUTH GA STATE COLLEGE 74: It was a ballgame that looked more like a track meet between Albany Tech and South Georgia State College Saturday night. The Hawks edged the Titans 74-69 in the fast-paced affair.

Albany Tech was down double digits for most of the second half until D’Meco Rozier took over. The sophomore was in the zone, knocking down back-to-back 3-pointers to make it 68-62 with two minutes left to play. He hit another basket and capped his own 8-2 run.

On the ensuing Hawks possession, Rozier got a steal, then dished to Miles Inman for three and it was 70-67 with 40 seconds left.

South Georgia missed a few free throws, keeping the Titans in it, but a costly turnover with 16.8 seconds left sealed Albany Tech’s fate. Titans head coach Sylvester Patterson said he was pleased the way his team fought back and played overall despite a few rough days of practice.

“I told them at halftime, we hadn’t been practicing hard, just kinda messing around the last couple of days,” he said. “They hit us in the mouth. They knocked us down, but they didn’t knock us out. We came back in the second half, had a chance right there…but they fought though. I’m really proud of them how they came back.”

Rozier led all scorers with 23 points, followed by Inman with 12.

The Titans are done until January and Patterson believes the break couldn’t come at a better time. He said they’ll use the time off to rest some of their players, including guard Ben Carter, who was nursing a knee injury Saturday.