Dec. 19, 2003
– Game No. 9: Princeton
Georgia Tech (6-2) vs. Princeton (2-6)
December 21, 2003
1 p.m.
Jadwin Gym
Princeton, NJ
WREK-FM 91.1 in Atlanta
Tech Concludes Road Trip at Princeton
Georgia Tech will conclude its northeastern road trip Sunday afternoon at Princeton in a game that is scheduled to tip off at 1 p.m. Following the game, the Jackets will return home for the Christmas holiday before meeting the Georgia Lady Bulldogs at the Russell Athletic Shoootout on December 27th. The Yellow Jackets enter the game against Princeton with a 6-2 record on the season while the Tigers enter the contest at 2-6 on the season. Georgia Tech will be broadcasting the game on WREK-Radio, 91.1 FM in Atlanta, and online at www.wrek.org.
Series Notes
The Yellow Jackets and Tigers will be facing each other for the first time in history on Sunday afternoon, with Tech placing its undefeated record versus Ivy League opponents on the line. The Jackets last met a member of the Ive League in 2000 when they hosted both Cornell and Dartmouth in November and December, respectively. Prior to those two games, the last time that a Tech team had met a member of the Ivy League was in 1994 when the Jackets hosted Cornell in the first of Tech’s two games against the school. Tech is a combined 6-0 versus Ivy League opponents and has won by an average of 15 points per contest.
Last Time Out for Tech
Tech opened the northestern roadswing at Old Dominion, where the Lady Monarchs hadn’t lost all season and kept their streak alive against the Yellow Jackets. Tech was able to contain two of the Lady Monarchs top three scorers but was still unable to pull out the victory, falling by a score of 67-56. Tech was led by senior Fallon Stokes, who scored 20 points for the fourth consecutive game and fifth time this season while pulling down a team-high eight rebounds in the game. She was followed in the scoring column by sophomore center Kasha Terry, who had 14 points, and redshirt freshman April Johnson, with 12. After playing consistent throughout the first seven games of the season by coming into the game averaging just 13 turnovers per contest, the Jackets coughed up the ball 22 times, which led to 25 points for the Lady Monarchs. The Jackets were also plagued by foul problems, as two Tech point guards fouled out in the second half, including senior starter Alex Stewart with more than five minutes left in the contest with the Jackets behind by five.
A Look at Princeton
The Tigers will be playing their third game in six days, and second versus an ACC-opponent as they last played Wake Forest Friday evening, losing 58-51. Princeton turned the ball over 31 times in the contest, which led to 32 Demon Deacons points. Guard Katy O’Brien led the Tigers with 14 points in the contest, and converted on 4-of-7 from beyond the three-point arc to pace Princeton, while guard Casey Lockwood added nine points and five rebounds before fouling out.
Yellow Jacket Injury Update
Georgia Tech senior guard Nina B?rlin has been sidelined indefinitely as she continues to recover from her second knee surgery in two years to repair a torn ACL. B?rlin missed the final 12 games of the 2002 season with a torn ligament in the same left knee and suffered the second tear just two minutes into the season-opener with Charlotte in November, 2002. She underwent a successful surgery and continues to recover at this time.
Tech Among ACC Leaders
With the Georgia Tech senior starters stepping up, Georgia Tech ranks at or near the top in several individual categories and is moving up in the team standings as the year progresses. Fallon Stokes and Alex Stewart are leading the way, with the rest of the Yellow Jackets not far behind. Stokes, a forward from Atlanta, ranks at the top of the scoring category with an average of 20.3 points per contest. She also ranks in the top fifteen in the three rebounding categories, offensive (14th, 2.14 pg), defensive (4th, 5.0 pg) and total rebounds (8th, 7.1 pg).
The Norcross native Stewart joins Stokes as one of the top scorers in the ACC, as she stands 15th with an average of 12.0 points per game. She also stands in the top 10 in several other categories however, as she’s fourth in assists per game (5.0), sixth in steals per contest (2.29) and three-point field goal percentage (.421) and seventh in assist/turnover ratio (1.75). She also stands 13th in field goal percentage (.510), tied for 13th in three-pointers per game (1.14), tied for 14th in offensive rebounds (2.14 pg), 15th in free-throw percentage (.706) and 19th in total rebounding (5.3 pg).
Senior Megan Isom, a shooting guard from Decatur, stayed near the top of the league in the three-point stats, holding tied for fifth with 13 threes made this season and standing 14th with a .325 average from beyond the three-point arc.
Rounding out the top-17 for the Jackets in multiple conference categories are Jessica Williams, April Johnson and Kasha Terry. Terry currently stands second in the ACC in blocks per game, with 2.0, while Williams is 17th on the boards with an average of 5.4 rebounds per game and stands tied for 14th with her teammates Stokes and Stewart with 2.14 offensive boards per game. In the free-throw percentage category, Harpring is tied for first with Duke’s Iciss Tillis, owning a perfect mark from the charity stripe, but does not rank in the conference stats due to lack of attempts. Johnson has moved up to sixth in the standings, however, as she has an .833 average from the line.
She’s Not New on the Block
Yellow Jacket sophomore Kasha Terry played in 30 games in the 2002-03 season, and recorded 40 blocks along the way, establishing herself as a solid shot blocker within the ACC by averaging 1.3 per game. This season, the Douglasville, Ga., native has stepped it up even more, averaging 2.0 blocks per contest, including two games with three or more blocks recorded. She tied a career high of four blocks, set against Maryland last season, against Georgia State in early December Terry is currently second in the Atlantic Coast Conference in blocks per game.
The Lil’ Thief Gives Back
While Georgia Tech senior point guard Alex Stewart stands second on the team in scoring, she leads the team in assists, with 41 on the season and an average of five per game. Her 41 helpers is more than one-third of Tech’s total assists on the season, as the Yellow Jackets have a total of 100 on the year. Stewart had a season-high of nine assists against Southwest Missouri State at the Paradise Jam in St. Thomas over the Thanksgiving holidays and dished out seven against West Virginia in the same tournament a day earlier. The Norcross, Ga., native also leads the team with 18 steals for the season, which is almost 1/3 of the Jackets’ 2003-04 total of 57. She stole a season-high four against Davidson in the Jackets’ first home game of the season and had three steals against both James Madison (in game one of the Paradise Jam) and Georgia State. As of Monday, she stands fourth in the ACC in assists and sixth in steals. For her career, Stewart has 375 helpers and 151 swipes to her credit.
The Magic Number is 70
While Georgia Tech is led by scorers Fallon Stokes and Alex Stewart, a huge part of the success of the Yellow Jackets has come at the other end of the court. Through the first six games, Tech has kept six of its opponents under 70 points, with two of those being held to under 60. In those five games, Georgia Tech iowns a 5-1 record with the closest game being a 69-64 contest against Georgia State in early December. The lowest any team has scored this season against the Jackets is 48 points by UCF on December 14. Tech won that game by 22 points. A year ago, Tech held 20 opponents under 70 points, with the Jackets’ winning 17 of those contests.
Stokes Having a “Grand” Senior Year
Senior Fallon Stokes was expected to step in and pick up the slack when Sonja Mallory left due to eligibility, and she hasn’t disappointed. Through six games this season, Stokes is averaging 20.3 points and 7.1 rebounds per game, both of which far exceed her career averages. Coming into the 2003-04 season, she was averaging 10.1 points per game while pulling down 4.9 rebounds per contest. She has had a season-high of 25 points on two occasions this season, with the most recent one coming against cross-town rival Georgia State. With a little over 17 minutes left in that game, Stokes also set a career mark, becoming just the 19th player in Georgia Tech history to score 1,000 points in their career. She currently has 1,048 points during her four years at Tech. During the past four games, the senior from Atlanta has scored 20 or more points to give her five games with 20 or more this season. She also leads the ACC with 15 consecutive games with double-figure points.
Stewart Looking For Milestones
Yellow Jackets senior guard Alex Stewart keeps moving up the Georgia Tech career charts with a stellar senior campaign. With 41 assists already this season, Stewart brings her career total to 381, which is now the fourth-highest career average in Tech history. She is just 21 assists away from Tory Ehle, who has 402 behind Tiffany Martin (559) and Georgia Tech Hall of Famer, Ida Neal, who had 508. Martin stills stands sixth in the ACC record books while Neal is 15th.
When she suits up for today’s game, Stewart will be playing in the 101st game of her career at Georgia Tech. She is on pace to break the Tech career mark of 119 games, set by Karen Lounsbury in 1992, in the last game of the regular season against Wake Forest.
