Trailing
by 13 points with 10:17 remaining, Florida used a 21-4 run to erase the deficit
and earn a 67-61 victory against Alabama at historic Foster Auditorium on
Sunday afternoon.
Sophomore
Kayla Lewis (Decatur, Ga.) scored 15 points with 11 rebounds to post the
third double-double of her career, while junior Jaterra Bonds
(Gainesville, Fla.) scored 11 of her game-high 15 points in the second half, as
the Gators (16-12, 5-9) halted their three-game skid and collected their first
win in Tuscaloosa since Feb. 5, 2009, when the Gators claimed the 92-71 victory
in Coleman Coliseum.
Redshirt-junior
Lily Svete (Granger, Ind.) scored all of her 11 points in the first
half, when she drilled three three-pointers, while freshman Sydney Moss
(Union, Ky.) distributed a career-high-tying nine assists with six rebounds and
four points. With her fourth assist of the game, Moss dished her 100th assist
this season, just the 18th time in program history a Gator has topped the
milestone in a year and the first time since 2010-11 when Lanita Bartley had
119.
“We
showed a tremendous amount of fight and I think this is a great sign of this
team growing and maturing and playing the way that we should play in the face
of adversity,” UF head coach Amanda Butler said. “We couldn’t get
ourselves to the free throw line as much as we thought we would be able to, and
couldn’t get the ball into the block as cleanly as we thought we’d be able to.
They wouldn’t go away.
“Our
players just kept fighting and finding ways to make a difference,” Butler
continued. “They handled the challenges that their coaches issued to them and
stepped up and made plays in critical moments. I thought our team energy and
team chemistry was fantastic.”
Alabama
scored the first eight points of the second half, erased Florida’s one-point
halftime lead and took a 39-32 lead.
Vicky
McIntyre became the ninth of nine Gators who dressed for the game to score, as
she halted the run with a short jumper inside.
The
teams traded buckets for the next couple of minutes before the Tide ripped off
eight consecutive points and took a 51-38 lead with 11:16 remaining.
Florida
hit just 2-of-15 during those the first 10:52 of the second half and had
committed four more turnovers that brought their total to 18, as Alabama
converted into 20 points.
After
the teams traded buckets, the Gators started their rally as they ripped off a
21-4 run and took a 61-57 lead with 4:07 remaining.
Bonds
began the game-changing run by nailing her first three-pointer since the
February 3rd home game against Alabama. Christin Mercer then converted
consecutive buckets and Lewis hit a jumper inside to cap a 9-0 run.
The
teams exchange scored for the next two minutes and with the Gators trailing by
six points, 57-51, Lewis went to work again as she banked in a jumper from the
free throw line.
Jennifer
George, who blocked a shot in the first half for the 173 rd of her career that
moved her pass DeLisha Milton for fourth in program history, hit a bucket
inside on a great pass from Moss and Lewis added an eight-foot jumper off an
in-bounds play. Moss then connected on a six-footer in the paint, before Lewis
capped a 10-0 march with a short shot inside that gave Florida a 61-47 lead
with 4:10 on the clock.
Kaneisha
Horn stopped the run with a bucket, but George came right back with a jumper
inside and Bonds hit another driving layup and Florida’s lead swelled back to
six points with 1:20 remaining.
Meghan
Perkins then scored two of her 14 points the Alabama (12-15, 2-12 SEC), which
dropped its eighth straight game.
Myers,
who finished with 15 points, launched a three-pointer that was off the mark and
Bonds corralled the miss and was fouled. She went the line and hit both ends of
a one-plus-one and sealed the victory.
“We
had some players who we had been waiting on early in the game to come alive,
that came alive and Sydney Moss was one of those players, Kayla Lewis was one
of those players,” Butler praised. “There were some spots where it made it
difficult for her to play defense because of her size. We had players who
subbed in like Lily and January (Miller), who made a difference defensively.”
Alabama
converted 5-of-14 three-pointers in the first half, but missed all 11 attempts
in the second, as Florida hit 44.1 percernt overall from the floor during the
final 20 minutes after making just 2-of-15 through the first 10 minutes of the
frame.
The
Gators turned the focus to rebounding, as they held a 48-37 edge by the end of
the game after holding just a 22-21 lead in the first half.
The
Gators scored the first six points of the game, as Christin Mercer, Jennifer
George and Lily Svete each hit field goals in the opening 1:55.
A
different Gator connected on each of UF’s first six field goals and Florida was
able to counter each Alabama point and managed to push its lead to as many as
eight points, 17-10, after back-to-back three-pointers from Carlie Needles.
The
Crimson Tide then marched off a 7-0 spurt and tied the game after Shafontaye
Myers drilled her second of three three-pointers during the first half that
forced Florida to call a timeout with 9:01 remaining in the opening period.
Junior
Jaterra Bonds immediately responded with a pair of driving layups and Kayla
Lewis added a short shot in the paint and took the Gators to a six-point lead,
23-17.
Alabama
countered with its second big push, using a 12-3 run and took a 29-26 lead with
3:49 remaining. Svete’s three-pointer was the lone Gator score during the
march, but that bucket helped the Gator junior in the closing two minutes, as
she halted Alabama’s eight-point run at the end of the spurt with another trey
at the 2:01 mark and followed with another from the left side 20 seconds later
and gave Florida a 32-29 lead.
Myers
finished the first half scoring with her fifth field goal of the period, as she
totaled 13 points during the first 20 minutes.
Svete
led Florida with 11 points, as eight of the nine Gators who dressed for the
game scored during the first half.
The
Gators committed 14 turnovers, but hit 13-of-31 from the floor, including
6-of-13 from the arc.
