Georgia Lady Bulldog Trinity Turner scored the game-winning three-point shot with just seconds on the clock, giving the team their first Southeastern Conference win of the season.
In the first quarter of the game, De’Mauri Flournoy led the Lady Bulldogs with three three-point shots. She led the entire game with 19 points, scoring 11 in the first half. At the end of the first quarter, the Lady Bulldogs were up 27-21.
The Lady Bulldogs began to fall short during the second quarter. Flournoy and Trinity Turner were able to put points on the board, but the Missouri Tigers started to take the lead. Georgia was down 33-43 at the end of the first half, with Missouri holding the largest scoring run of 14 points in the second quarter. Georgia’s largest scoring run was nine points in the second quarter.
Head coach Katie Abrahamson-Henderson spoke about the conversation that she had with the team during half-time that helped push them to fight for a victory.
“I said ‘stay with it, we can do it,’” Abrahamson-Henderson said. “We’ve been in a lot of games and they get nervous about the score. We just have to stay with it, we have to play defense. I think we’re a better scoring team this year, to be honest. We just had to lock in and play defense and we did.”
The Missouri Tigers kept up their momentum in the third quarter, but the Georgia Lady Bulldogs turned the game around in the fourth quarter.
At the start of the fourth quarter, Georgia was down 46-57. In the first few minutes, senior Asia Avinger scored two threes. As the game grew more intense, the Lady Bulldogs scored six points in the last nine seconds of the game. Turner stole the ball in the final seconds of the fourth quarter and won the game with her three-point shot, 74-72. Turner also totaled 18 points, seven assists, and seven rebounds.
Turner said the last time she hit a shot like her game-winning three was in high school.
Abrahamson-Henderson also spoke about the importance of this win for the team.
“It’s important for them because I’m playing freshmen out on the floor against some really good upperclassmen,” she said. “I think for them, it really gives them some confidence.”
The Lady Bulldogs were 0-2 in the Southeastern Conference prior to their win against Missouri. Thursday night’s game against the Tigers marked their first home conference game of the season. Next up, Georgia will host another SEC matchup at the Stegeman Coliseum on Sunday, January 12 at 2 p.m.