ANDY JOHNSTON
SPECIAL TO THE NEWS

ATHENS, Ga. — DeWanna Bonner and her Auburn teammates were halfway to their locker room when Georgia’s players began to dance on the black “G” at midcourt.

After 20 consecutive wins, they didn’t want any part of this celebration.

Fifth-ranked Auburn shot a season-low 33.3 percent from the field and lost for the first time this year, dropping a 67-58 decision to the Bulldogs on Thursday night.

“Hey, it’s a loss, but Coach (Nell) Fortner had prepared us for this,” said Bonner, who scored 27 points. “We’re not down. Really. This is a tough place to play. It’s a road game, and it’s tough to play on the road. We just didn’t keep our composure.”

The Bulldogs (14-7, 4-2 Southeastern Conference) used a 15-4 run in the second half to pull away and hand the Tigers (20-1, 5-1) their first defeat since March 22, 2008.

This one came just four days after Auburn enjoyed one of its biggest victories of the season, an 82-68 win over Tennessee.

But unlike that victory and the 19 that preceded it, the Tigers couldn’t hit open shots and couldn’t convert their second chances, going 21-of-63 from the field.

The Bulldogs were content to stay in their 2-3 zone, where they could keep an eye on Bonner and the pace to their liking. Georgia, which is second in the SEC in scoring defense (53.2 percent) held Auburn to 22.6 points below its conference-leading average of 80.6 points a game.

“We knew (Bonner) would get her points,” said Angel Robinson, who led Georgia with 17 points. “She’s a great talent, and she’s going to get hers. Our zone helped us keep a lot of people between (Bonner) and the basket. We did a great job defensively.”

Auburn couldn’t gain momentum after Bonner scored on a layup to cut Georgia’s lead to 55-46 with 6:08 left in the game. The Tigers were held without a field goal for the next four minutes, allowing the Bulldogs to hold onto their lead.

“We shot the ball poorly. We couldn’t find the pass key,” Fortner said. “We had some good looks and we attacked the basket fine, but our shots wouldn’t fall.”

Georgia started its decisive run on Angela Puleo’s layup, off an Ashley Houts pass, with 11:37 remaining in the game. Jalessa Rhoden hit another layup, and Sherell Hobbs’ short jumper only delayed the Bulldogs’ momentum.

Porsha Phillips took another pass from Houts and turned it into a short jumper and a 46-42 lead with 10:29 left. Christy Marshall hit consecutive jumpers 22 seconds apart and Houts added to her assist total when she found Puleo for a 3-pointer and a 53-44 advantage with 7:35 remaining.

Houts joined her teammates in the scoring when she completed the 15-4 run with a steal and a layup for a 55-44 lead with 7:15 remaining.

“We just took away some of the things they wanted to do,” said Houts, who finished with 13 assists.

Auburn might have known that it wasn’t going to be its night near the end of the first half when Bonner missed an open driving layup, grabbed the rebound, missed another layup and then watched as teammate Keke Carrier snared the ball and missed another shot from close range.

“We’ll learn from this and move on,” Bonner said. “It’s a loss. We had talked about going undefeated, but that’s not going to happen.

“We’ll move on.”