Dec. 28, 2003
ATLANTA – The Georgia Tech women’s basketball team will face its final challenge before opening Atlantic Coast Conference play when it hosts the fifth Atlanta Marriott Northwest Holiday Invitational December 30 and 31.
The Jackets face William & Mary in their first game, which is set to begin at 1 p.m. Tuesday afternoon, while Florida A&M and Charleston Southern compete against each other at 3 p.m. The winners of Tuesday’s games will then meet in the championship game on New Year’s Eve at 3 p.m., preceded by the consolation game at 1 p.m.
The Yellow Jackets are coming off of a rough stretch away from home, where they have gone 1-2 in the last three games, with losses at Old Dominion and against the 11th-ranked Georgia Bulldogs in the Russell Shootout this past Saturday. This will mark just the third and fourth home games for Tech this season, as the Jackets have taken two five-day trips, covering five games total, and another solo-trip to Florida Atlantic to open the season.
Tech is led by senior scorer Fallon Stokes, who has recorded six games with 20 or more points and leads the ACC in scoring while standing in the top ten in rebounding. She is joined in the scoring column by senior point guard Alex Stewart, averaging 10.2 points and 5.3 assists per game, and senior shooting guard Megan Isom, with 8.8 points per contest. Defensively, sophomore Kasha Terry is averaging 2.0 blocks per game while Stewart has swiped 19 passes.
Tournament History: The first Georgia Tech/Atlanta Marriott NW Holiday Invitational took place during the 1997-98 season and continued three additional years. The Jackets then took a two-year break from the tournament from 2002-03 before rescheduling for the fifth time this season. Tech is now 6-2 in the tournament, winning the two titles during the 1999 and 2001 seasons. Their two losses came at the hands of No. 20 Auburn on December 30, 1997, and Pittsburgh, on December 30, 1999. Two interesting facts about the teams that the Jackets have lost to in the tournament: the Auburn team that defeated the Jackets 70-41 had an assistant coach by the name of MaChelle Joseph (now Tech head coach), while the Pittsburgh team that handed Tech a 75-69 loss is now coached by then-Tech head coach Agnus Berenato.
Out of the Jackets eight contests in the tournament, two have gone to overtime, and only three have been decided by less than 10 points. The most points that Tech ever scored in the tournament was 100, against Lafayette in 1998-99, and the fewest was 41, against the ranked Auburn team. The Jackets have scored 85 or more points in five of the eight contests, winning all five.
Both Georgia Tech games will be broadcast on WREK-Radio, 91.1 FM in Atlanta, and online at ramblinwreck.com, while livestats may be found at ramblinwreck.com.
