For most of us, this was the second day of a holiday weekend, but, for a handful of University of Georgia student-athletes, it was another day of competition, and a successful one, at that. In today’s Sunday sports summary, we bring you the breakdown of how the Red and Black fared on courts of various types:
Despite the absence of Jasmine James from the lineup for the contest’s final 34 minutes, Andy Landers’s Lady Bulldogs improved to 4-1 in SEC play with a 68-51 road win over Mississippi State. Anne Marie Armstrong (22), Khaalidah Miller (17), and Jasmine Hassell (12) all finished in double-figures, as Georgia hit nearly as high a percentage of three-pointers (5 of 13) as of field goals (30 of 71).
The Red and Black opened on a 5-0 run and led throughout, building up a 23-16 advantage before James re-injured her sprained right knee. Despite the loss of their starting point guard, the visiting Bulldogs scored the next five points en route to a 34-26 halftime lead.
Another 5-0 Red and Black run followed at the start of the second half, paving the way to a 60-42 edge, after which the Athenians cruised to victory. Georgia scored 29 points off of Mississippi State turnovers and matched the home team’s 21 defensive rebounds with 21 offensive boards of the visitors’ own.
After claiming crowns in both doubles and singles at last year’s SEC Coaches’ Indoor Tournament, the Georgia men’s tennis team came a step closer to repeating that feat on Sunday. Third-seeded Sadio Doumbia claimed a quarterfinal victory over teammate KU Singh, 6-4, 6-3, and bested Mississippi’s Jonas Lutjen, 6-3, 6-4, in the semifinals, setting up a singles final against Kentucky’s Anthony Rossi at noon tomorrow. The doubles finals, at 10:00 a.m., will feature the Red and Black tandem of Garrett Brasseaux and Wil Spencer, who will go up against an Ole Miss duo as a reward for defeating two Gator pairs, 8-4 and 8-3, respectively. The Bulldog men, winners of 50 total SEC Indoors titles, will be looking to sweep doubles and singles for the fifth time.
Meanwhile, at home, the Georgia women’s tennis team took care of business against visiting Troy on Sunday. The seventh-ranked Bulldogs improved to 2-0 with a second straight doubles sweep, as Nadja Gilchrist and Chelsey Gullickson (8-0), Kate Fuller and Lauren Herring (8-2), and Lilly Kimbell and Maho Kowase (8-6) all won their tandem matches. The Red and Black remained dominant in singles play, with Gilchrist (6-2, 6-1), Gullickson (6-0, 6-1), and Herring (6-2, 6-0) all claiming straight-set victories. Kowase took a little longer to dispatch her opponent, 6-3, 6-7 (6-8), 1-0 (10-8), but Kimbell and Fuller completed the sweep by winning their singles matches, 6-1, 6-2, and 6-1, 6-1, respectively, to card the 7-0 team triumph.
Go ‘Dawgs!