ATLANTA -
Deasia Merrill recorded her first career double-double and Nyla Jean scored a career-high 14 points to lead Georgia State to a 68-45 victory over Winthrop at the GSU Convocation Center Monday night.
Merrill was one of four Panthers to reach double-figures in the Panthers first home game since November 7. The Villa Rica native scored 11 points and grabbed a career-high 11 rebounds in her first start of the season. Jean shot a perfect 5-for-5 from the field, including two three pointers. Her 14 points led all Panther scorers.
Freshman Zay Dyer finished with 10 points and 11 rebounds to record her first career double-double, and Mya Byrd scored 10 points off the bench on 4-of-9 shooting, including two three-pointers.
Georgia State shot 28-for-52 from the field with a season-high 9-for-17 from three-point range and outrebounded Winthrop 39-26 while holding the Eagles to just 30.9 percent shooting and 18.8 percent from three. It is the fourth time this season that the Panthers have held an opponent to under 36 percent shooting.
"Always good to be home," said GSU head coach
Gene Hill. "There's no place like home, as they say, and I felt like we came out with a lot of energy, excited to get back home and play. I felt like we played as a team. The first period, I was really happy with our defensive effort overall. Too many turnovers still, and so we've got to clean that up, but I felt like we just really came out and played with a lot of energy from the opening tip."
GSU jumped out to a quick 5-0 lead in the first quarter they would never relinquish. The Panthers led 8-7 with 6:04 remaining in the quarter before going on a 10-0 run to jump out to an18-7 lead.
The score was 35-21 at halftime when Georgia State scored the first eight points of the third quarter to pull away. They outscored the Eagles 23-10 in the third to take a 58-31 lead heading into the fourth.
Georgia State will travel to Cleveland, Ohio to open the Hampton Inn Downtown Viking Invitational against host Cleveland State. Game time is at 4 p.m.
