FAIRFAX, VA (Jan. 28) - Georgia State head coach Lea Henry recorded her 300th career victory as the Panthers earned a 46-36 win over George Mason in a Colonial Athletic Association game.
Georgia State (12-7, 3-5) also set their CAA lowest defensive yield with the 36 points allowed, the sixth lowest in school history. It is the seventh time this year the CAA's top defensive team has held an opponent to 50 points or fewer. The Panthers held Mason to 28.3% shooting and 0-for-12 outside the three-point arc. The Panthers have now won 50 straight games when holding an opponent to 50 points or fewer, including the 7-0 this season.
The Panthers got 21 points from Danyiell McKeller and a double-double of 16 points and 10 rebounds from junior forward Angelique Burtts. Point guard Crystal Johnson, the CAA's leader in assists, added nine more in this win.
George Mason (8-11, 1-7) was led by Brittany Eley's 11 points and Rahneeka Saunders' 10 points. The 36 points was their season low after 41 vs. Virginia Tech and 44 to CAA foe Delaware. The Patriots lost leading scorer Brittany Poindexter with an injury early in the game and she never returned.
Henry, whose first head coaching win was as interim coach at the University of Florida on Feb. 14, 1990, later served as head coach at Mercer before coming to Georgia State in 1994. Henry, who was an Olympic gold-medal winning player and All-SEC guard at Tennessee, is in the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame and the Tennessee Vols Hall of Fame. This was her 242nd win at Georgia State.
"Yes, it feels special to get a road CAA win and a milestone win," Coach Henry said postgame. "You remember these things and seeing the players grinning over at me during the end of the game and being aware of something like this makes a coach feel good."
"We came in thinking about the importance of our defensive effort and the veterans understand how to play team defense," Henry noted. "We've had tough luck losing two key players for the season and to keep pulling together and finding ways to win is important to reinforce a winning attitude."
The visiting Panthers pulled from a 6-6 early tie with an 8-0 run sparked by McKeller and never let host Mason get the lead again. Georgia State held a 26-18 halftime lead.
A quick 10-4 run to start the second half gave Georgia State a 36-22 lead at the midpoint of the second half. Mason could get no close than nine points with a final run at 43-34 with just 1:32 left.
Georgia State stays on the road to play at first-place VCU on Sunday in a re-match of an earlier CAA game this month with the Rams.
NOTEBOOK: This 12th win equals last year's final total in the 12-18 season...The Panthers are 2-2 at home in the CAA and now 1-3 on the road after close losses at James Madison, ODU and Hofstra...Overall, the Panthers are 4-4 on the road this season...GSU led the CAA in fewest points allowed per game (56) before tonight and were No. 27 in the NCAA before tonight...Danyiell McKeller produced her 11th game this season with 20 or more points...Burtts, who had a unique triple-double earlier this season, had her first double-double of the season...Coach Henry won 3 games at Florida, 55 at Mercer and now 242 at GSU...Four of the five starters played the full 40 minutes tonight, with Erika Sumpter coming in for Shay Rawls for one minute, meaning the five starters logged 199 minutes...Shay Rawls' streak of three consecutive games with double-figures was stopped as she produced eight tonight, giving her 41 in the last four games.
