ATLANTA — Senior guard Shawnda Atwood paced Georgia Southern with 10 points, but Georgia Tech ran away with a 44-point second half to claim a 78-50, Yellow Jackets win, Sunday afternoon, at Alexander Memorial Coliseum.
    Georgia Southern falls to 3-6 overall with the loss, while Georgia Tech improves its record to 7-1 on the season.
    Atwood led GSU with 10 points on 4-of-6 shooting from the field.  She was followed by Chequilla Jessie with
nine points and four rebounds, while Carolyn Whitney dished out a game-high six assists.
    Four Yellow Jackets scored in double-figures, including Chioma Nnamaka with a game-high 20 points on 8-of-16 shooting.
    Georgia Southern opened up the game with its first nine points coming from 3-point land.  Tiffany Brown, Jessica Geiger and Whitney each chipped in with the three-ball.   

    The momentum changed several times in the first half with three ties and six lead-changes.
    Georgia Southern’s largest lead came at the 14:29 mark after Geiger capped an 8-1 run by putting the Lady Eagles up 14-9.
    “I thought we played well the first 10 to 13 minutes of the first half,” said GSU coach Rusty Cram.  “We felt like we were executing the game plan very well and holding them at bay.  I think we really took them by surprise and our kids were really focused.”
    The Yellow Jackets regained the lead, 15-14, with 12:48 on the clock, and although GSU knotted the score at 17 with 9:18 remaining in the first half, the Lady Eagles couldn’t regain the lead for the remainder of the contest.
    Georgia Tech led 34-23 at the break, its largest lead of the half, and was paced by Nnamaka Chioma with 13 points.  The Eagles shot 8-of-23 from the field compared to Tech’s 14-of-34  in the first half.
    In second-half action, Georgia Southern was able to cut the lead down to just eight points after a pair of free throws by Whitney. But turnovers continued to plague the Lady Eagles while Georgia Tech improved their second-half shooting to 55.6 percent (15-of-27) from the field and the Yellow Jackets slowly produced a 31-point lead before the final buzzer sounded.
    “I feel like they didn’t stop our offense,” said Cram.  “We stopped ourselves by missing shots and turning the ball over, and they were unforced turnovers, which is a big difference.  I didn’t feel like their
defense stopped us.”
    “We’ve had the best week of practice all year,” said Cram.  “This was a chance for us to go out there and line it up and play hard and smart. We’ve got to get longer minutes of our focus, because that’s where we
let down.  But as far as our intensity goes, we were proud of them for the way they worked hard.”
    Georgia Southern will return home to Hanner Fieldhouse to host its second Southern Conference game of the season, entertaining Appalachian State, Sunday at 3 p.m.