Georgia Tech women’s basketball wins season opener

Release from Georgia Tech Athletics:

The Georgia Tech women’s basketball team (1-0) opened up the 2014-15 season with a 92-57 victory at Loyola Chicago (0-1) at Gentile Arena on Friday evening.

“I was really proud of the way we came out on the road,” head coach MaChelle Joseph said. “With a young team you never know how you are going to respond. To put 92 points on the board in a difficult environment was a positive. I was really pleased with how we shared the basketball. We had five people score in double figures.”

The Yellow Jackets are now 30-11 on opening day and 11-1 in openers under Joseph. Tech is a perfect 3-0 when opening up the season on the road under Joseph’s direction.

During the first-ever meeting between the two teams, Georgia Tech shot 47 percent from the field and made an impressive 11 3-point baskets. The Yellow Jackets forced the Ramblers to turn the ball over 16 times, capitalizing on their opponents’ mistakes and scoring 28 points off of turnovers.

“Roddreka Rogers had a double-double,” Joseph said. “Katarina Vuckovic had a career-high and I really thought she was the difference maker in the game because they threw everything at us defensively. I thought Katarina making those open shots was a huge difference maker.”

Five of the Yellow Jackets scored in double-figures. The Jackets’ two sophomores, Kaela Davis and Vuckovic, led the way for Tech by both scoring a team-high 17 points. Vuckovic hit a career-high three 3-pointers on her way to a career-high 17 points. Junior Roddreka Rogers recorded her sixth double-double of her career by scoring 10 points and pulling down a team-high 13 rebounds. Senior Sydney Wallace scored 14 points and had a team-high four steals while freshman Zaire O’Neil scored 10 points in her first outing as a Yellow Jacket.

The Jackets started out with a 3-0 lead thanks to a 3-point play by Rogers and held on to the lead for a wire-to-wire win.  Back-to-back 3-pointers from Vuckovic and Wallace extended the Yellow Jackets’ lead to 23-12 at the 12:56 mark. Freshman Antonia Peresson, who made her first career start at Loyola, hit two-3-pointers in the first half and her second 3-point basket pushed the Jackets’ lead to, 34-17. Peresson dished out a team-high eight assists against the Ramblers.

Tech utilized excellent shooting from the 3-point range, going 6-for-9 from behind the arc to take a 51-29 lead into half time. Wallace, Peresson and Vuckovic all made two 3-pointers in the first 20 minutes of play.

The Yellow Jackets came out strong out of the locker room, holding the Ramblers without a field goal for the first 5:37 of the second half. Georgia Tech also stayed hot on offense in the second half, never letting the Ramblers come within 30 points of their lead. The Yellow Jackets took their largest lead of the night when junior Nariah Taylor made a layup to put Tech ahead 38 points, 74-36, with 8:08 left in the game.