Lady Chargers Knock Off #16 Walters State to Open Season

During his time at the helm of the GHC Lady Chargers, Head Coach Brandan Harrell has always made sure his teams are playing quality competition in their pre-conference games. This season is no different as the #21 Lady Chargers opened their 2019-20 season by taking on the #16 Walters State on their home court; a place where the Lady Senators only lost once last season on their way to a 29-5 record and NJCAA National Tournament Sweet Sixteen appearance.

As expected from two nationally-ranked teams, the game was evenly matched with both teams building leads only to see the other fight back. After falling behind by 5, the Lady Chargers cut the lead to 13-14 at the end of the 1^st quarter. The 2^nd quarter saw the script reversed with the Lady Chargers building a 7-point lead only to see the Lady Senators cut it to 34-32 at the half. After losing last season to injury, Ja’Lyn Reese came out firing in the first half. She was 6 of 8 from 3-point range, going into halftime with 20 points.

The back-and-forth affair continued in the second half. Walters State was again able to build a 5-point lead in the 3^rdquarter but GHC cut it to 1 again. At the end of 3, the Chargers trailed 50-51. The 4^th quarter began with the teams exchanging leads until about 7 minutes remaining when the Lady Chargers started to build another lead. GHC again pushed the lead to 7 about half way through the quarter and was able to sustain it through the end, prevailing 62-55. Coach Harrell was happy with the win but stressed the need to improvement moving forward. “I’m happy with how hard the team played but we must do a better job securing the ball defensively (GHC was outrebounded 41-30 overall, while allowing 20 offensive rebounds). Ja’Lyn stepped up and had a huge first half for us that really carried us offensively. I hope we can sustain the effort on a quick turnaround tomorrow.”

Ja’Lyn Reese led all scorers with 24 points, while also pulling down 5 rebounds. Jahnaria Brown added 18 points and 4 rebounds, while Nijeria Jordan tallied 13 points, 3 rebounds and 2 assists. Making their GHC debuts, point guard Sandra Lin impressed with 8 assists, a team-high 6 rebounds, and 1 steal, and Sasha Shishkina was disruptive on the defensive end, finishing with 5 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 blocks, and a steal.

The team returns to the court tomorrow (11/2) versus Roane State. Tip-Off is at 1:00PM. Make sure you follow GHC Athletics on Facebook (GHC Athletics) and Twitter (@GHC_Athletics) to keep up with all the Charger action this season.