AMERICUS — Saturday’s homecoming basketball games at South Georgia Tech were surrounded with several stories.

After the passing of Willy Mathis, an instructor at the college, both teams wore an honorary “W” patch on their jerseys in remembrance of his contributions to the college and community.

Then after leading her team to a thrilling 70-69 win that was decided at the buzzer, sophomore Tatyana Jackson was named homecoming queen for the Americus campus.

And the cheers were heard throughout The Hangar during the boys’ game for Americus natives Carlos West and Jeremy Lyles. Both scored 14 points, and Lyles put an exclamation point on a 93-77 win when T.J. Green bounced the ball off the backboard and he finished it off with a monster dunk.

So all in all, homecoming went well for the Jets on Saturday.

WOMEN

Shonketta Christian was in the right place at the right time.

She had already put the Lady Jets on top, 68-67 with 25 seconds left in the game, and then with 11 second left and a chance for the Fort McPherson Lady Knights to extend a 69-68 lead to three, Christian pulled down the rebound and started the break.

Jackson was blocked on her drive to the basket, and as the ball appeared to be heading out of bounds, Christian grabbed control of it and put it up and in at the buzzer for a 70-69 win.

She finished with a double-double of 11 points and a 12 rebounds.

“It was a great night for us,” said coach Brandan Harrell. “They are probably the most intelligent team we will play all year. I thought we played up and down, but when it came down to it, it was players making plays.”

The Lady Jets (4-0) won the rebounding battle, 62-57, as the two teams hoisted 164 shots in the game. Ashley Harrison came off the bench to collect a game-high 13 rebounds and scored eight in the process. Harrell said she was the difference in the game.

“I don’t know what happened to her Thursday and Friday, but she came out and practiced extremely hard. Until this game, she hadn’t really shown she was ready to step up and be that kind of player, but she stepped up tonight.”

Jackson had a game-high 17 points, six assists and two steals, and she grabbed nine rebounds.

After jamming her finger in shoot-around, Alice Holmes scored 15, and Lesha Brigham chipped in with 13.