TALLAHASSEE — Cierra Bravard struggled through one of her worst halves at Florida State.
Bravard scored half of her 10 points in the final 84 seconds, including two free throws with 30 seconds left to lift the 25th-ranked Seminoles to a 74-72 victory over archrival Florida on Tuesday.
Bravard’s 3-point play with 1:24 left less than a minute earlier gave the Seminoles (10-3) a short-lived 71-70 lead.
Bravard, Florida State’s scoring leader on the season, was held to a free throw and no rebounds in the first half.
“You can’t let missed shots get you down,” Bravard said. “I stay focused all game.”
That was a good thing for the Seminoles.
“She knows that her time is going to come when she’s really needed,” Florida State coach Sue Semrau said. “We talked a lot about getting the ball inside, getting it into Cierra.”
Jaterra Bonds driving jumper gave the Gators a 72-71 lead with 59 seconds left.
Courtney Ward scored 20 points, including a final free throw with a tenth of a second left, and freshman Natasha Howard added 17 points and 10 rebounds for her second career double-double for the Seminoles, who narrowly avoided losing three straight games for the first time since the 2003-04 season.
Jordan Jones hit four of six 3-pointers to lead Florida (10-4) with 14 points. Bonds added 11 points and a game high seven assists and Deana Allen finished with 10.
“When you’re on the short end of the stick it’s not a good game,” Florida coach Amanda Butler said. “We’ve got a lot of young players out there that need to be battle tested.”
Christian Hunnicutt’s steal and layup gave the Seminoles a 39-37 halftime lead. There were seven ties and five lead changes in the first half.
The Gators jumped to an early 10-3 lead, but Florida State took the lead at 19-16 on Bravard’s 3-point play and the Seminoles opened their biggest lead of the half at 33-27 on Alexa Deluzio’s 3-point basket. Deluzio also finished in double figures with 10 points.
The Seminoles opened a 51-41 lead on Bravard’s jumper with 17:12 left, but Florida went on 20-5 run and opened a 61-56 lead midway through the final half.
Florida got back into the game by dominating the boards in the second half to finished with a 39-31 rebound advantage.
Florida State was coming off successive losses for the first time in two years. It was their first game since a loss at UConn last week when the Huskies recorded an NCAA-record 89th straight victory with a 93-62 win.
The Gators became the fourth Southeastern Conference school to lose to Florida State this season. The Seminoles also beat Alabama, Auburn and Vanderbilt.
