Lady Dawgs Win Exhibition

From UGA Athletics:

The Georgia Lady Bulldogs used a late 5-0 surge to finally gain some breathing room en route to a 69-63 victory over Peach State Elite in an exhibition game at Stegeman Coliseum on Wednesday night.

Ashley Houts scored 19 points, grabbed eight rebounds, dished out four assists and collected three steals to lead Georgia. Transfer Porsha Phillips, playing her first game in a UGA uniform, added 16 points and 15 rebounds in her unofficial Lady Bulldog debut, while Christy Marshall chipped in 15, including a dozen in the second half.

"More than anything, this game allows us to better understand who we are and how important each individual piece is to the team," head coach Andy Landers said. "We're a basketball team that is not extremely deep. We're a basketball team that has to take advantage of high percentage opportunities. Tonight we didn't do a very good job of that and we ended up in a close game."

Houts keyed an early 8-0 run in the first 1:57 of the game and Georgia maintained a comfortable lead for the rest of the period.

The Lady Bulldogs led 38-23 at intermission; however, Peach State Elite, a group of former collegiate players, opened the second stanza with a 19-3 surge to gain its first lead at 42-41 with 14:17 left in the contest. The squads swapped the lead five more times and were tied on five occasions, lastly at 55-55 at the 9:55 mark.

Georgia owned a tenuous 62-60 edge with 2:50 left before a free throw from Marshall, a stickback by Phillips and a driving layup by Marshall made it 67-60 with just 44 seconds remaining.

"At times, a few individuals were very good," Landers said. "At times, I thought Houts was very good with the basketball and in transition. At times, I thought both Porsha and Jasmine [Lee] were good inside, especially rebounding the basketball."

Lee started in place of returning starter Angel Robinson, who injured her shoulder earlier in pre-season practices and has been out of action since. Lee responded with nine points and 11 rebounds in 22 minutes of action.

"The outside defense flunked tonight; it has to get better really, really quick," Landers said. "Our knocking down easy shots inside and shooting on the perimeter needs to get better. Our execution in our man offense needs to get better."

Alisha Tatham, who played at Massachusetts, scored a game-high 23 points and collected 12 rebounds for Peach State Elite.

The contest was Georgia's lone exhibition before the Lady Bulldogs' season opener, which is a week from Saturday (Nov. 15) against Alabama State in Stegeman Coliseum.