ATLANTA — Georgia Tech coach MaChelle Joseph doesn’t mince words when she talks about state rival Georgia.

“I circle this game every year,” she said. “I’m a big rivalry person. I played at Purdue and we were 18-0 against Indiana.”

Iasia Hemingway scored 18 points, Brigitte Ardossi had 15 points and 10 rebounds and Alex Montgomery added 11 to lead Georgia Tech to a 57-42 win over Georgia on Friday night, ending a three-game losing streak to its state rivals.

“The win is important to recruiting,” Joseph said. “(Coach) Andy Landers has done a great job for a long time at Georgia. We want Georgia Tech to get the same respect.”

Georgia Tech (7-2), which is 6-0 at home, was coming off a 70-57 win over No. 21 Michigan State on Wednesday night.

The loss snapped a five-game winning streak by Georgia (7-2), but the Lady Bulldogs still lead the series with Georgia Tech 26-3. The Yellow Jackets have won three of the last six after losing the first 22.
Georgia’s starters scored only 12 points on 5-of-28 shooting and had 23 turnovers.

“Not real impressive,” said Landers.

“At times it wasn’t pretty, but we make people play ugly,” said Joseph, whose team had 18 turnover, but only five in the second half.

Jaleesa Rhoden and Danielle Taylor scored 13 and 12 points off the bench, respectively, for Georgia.
Georgia Tech also had 27 free-throw attempts to only four by Georgia.

“Probably the best way to explain it is that we didn’t do what we prepared to do,” Landers said. “We don’t have that kind of quickness and fouled them. As far as being lopsided, they took it to us.”

Georgia Tech took a 28-25 lead at the half on a 3-point basket by Alex Montgomery two seconds before intermission.

The Yellow Jackets outscored Georgia 20-7 after nine minutes into the second half for their largest lead — 16 points — at 48-32 with Hemingway scoring seven points and Deja Foster getting six of her eight points.

Georgia never got closer than nine the rest of the way, cutting it to 50-41 on a basket by Taylor with 6:33 left.

Montgomery and Ardossi each had eight points for the Yellow Jackets in the opening 20 minutes.

Leading scorer Jacqua Williams (12.9 points) was scoreless, missing five shots in the opening half and wound up going 0-for-7 from the field with no points.

The first half was a bit sloppy with Georgia Tech having 11 turnovers and Georgia 13.