Balanced, tough play led the University of Florida women's basketball team to a 59-53 victory over Arkansas at Bud Walton Arena on Sunday in the Southeastern Conference opener for both teams.
For the Gators (8-6, 1-0 SEC), it was their first road win in a league opener since the 2004-05 season, when Florida downed Arkansas, 68-56.
“Road wins count double, that's what I tell our team,” UF head coach Amanda Butler said. “If you can go on the road and win in our league, it's a big, big deal. This is a big win for us and a great way to start the new year and the SEC season.”
Lonnika Thompson (New Orleans, La.) and Azania Stewart (Wood Green, England) led Florida with 12 points each, as nine different players scored for the Gators, who shot modest 35.3 percent (18-51) overall from the floor and 75 percent (18-24) from the free throw line.
The teams traded scoring to begin the second half and, with UF holding a four-point lead, Arkansas (8-6, 0-1 SEC) marched off an 8-3 run to take a 36-35 advantage.
That's when the Gators mounted a 8-0 spree of their own, with Trumae Lucas (Greensboro, N.C.) hitting a floater in the paint, Ndidi Madu (Antioch, Tenn.) adding a three-point play and Jordan Jones (Suwanee, Ga.) canning a three-pointer that gave Florida a 44-37 lead with 15 minutes remaining. Jones' trey was the 14th consecutive game wearing a Gator uniform she has knocked down one from long range, tied for the seventh longest streak in program history.
Arkansas came right back with an 8-2 run and closed within one point, 46-45, with just over 10 minutes left in the game.
Florida went back to its inside game and drew a couple fouls, as Sharielle Smith (Bradenton, Fla.) hit one and Stewart converted a pair that gave UF a four-point lead. The teams traded buckets for the next four minutes, as the Gators continued to hold a four-point advantage, 53-49, with 3:56 to go.
UF's Jennifer George (Orlando, Fla.) scored the next three points of the game from the free throw line and extended the Gator lead to seven, 56-49, with 2:37 on the clock.
Charity Ford brought hope to the Arkansas faithful, hitting a jumper with 1:36 that closed the gap to five and Dominique Robinson converted a layup, the first and only points from a Razorback bench player, as UF's lead was down to three points, 56-53, with 1:04 remaining.
Senior Steffi Sorensen (Jacksonville, Fla.), who had missed her last three free throws and had not converted once since the Dec. 7 game at Rutgers, coolly knocked down both ends of a one-and-one that lifted the lead back to five, with 53 seconds to go. Thompson ended the game's scoring with one more from the line with 19 seconds on the clock and the Gators claimed the all-importance SEC road win.
“There are lot of different things that I'm proud of today, but the thing I was most proud of was our toughness. That was the story in the second half,” Butler said. “We were tough on the boards. We were tough on defense. We were tough on offense. There wasn't anything we did particularly well, but we did a little bit of everything and it was all fueled by our toughness.”
Arkansas' Lyndsay Harris led all scorers with 21 points, while C'eira Ricketts added 11 points for the Razorbacks, who hit 32.3 percent (20-62) from the floor, including 11.1 percent (2-18) from the three-point arc, and 78.6 percent (11-14) from the free throw line.
Florida assumed an early 8-4 lead, as the Gators worked the ball inside during the first four minutes. Florida, however, turned the ball over four times in the next four-minute span and managed just two shots, as Arkansas started to find its offensive footing, scoring seven points. The Gators were lucky during that time because the Razorbacks had several shots under the basket and hit just 3-of-9 overall from the floor.
Those points started a 14-2 Arkansas run, as the home team raced out to an 18-10 lead with just under eight minutes left in the opening half. Florida called two timeouts during the spree and picked up three fouls, during which leading scorer Jordan Jones (Suwanee, Ga.) picked up her second and went to the bench with over eight minutes to go.
Lonnika Thompson (New Orleans) finally ended UF's scoring drought when she nailed a three-pointer, the Gators' first after having missed their opening six attempts from beyond the arc. Lyndsay Harris came right back by hitting Arkansas' first trey of the game and kept UF's deficit at eight points, 21-13, with 7:32 on the clock.
Jennifer George (Orlando, Fla.) then put back a tough shot underneath and Thompson drained another three-pointer, running a fast break and she found herself alone down the court, pulled the ball back out to wait for teammates, but then opted for the uncontested trey that pulled UF within three, 21-18, with 6:14 to go in the period.
Thompson and George began a 14-4 run that featured scoring from Ndidi Madu (Antioch, Tenn.), who converted an inbounds pass from Jennifer Mossor (Orlando, Fla.), a three-pointer from Susan Yenser (Marietta, Ga.), who snapped an 0-for-10 shooting spell, Azania Stewart (Wood Green, England), who sank a pair of free throws, and Trumae Lucas (Greensboro, N.C), who also knocked down a pair from the line that gave UF a 27-25 lead with 2:27 left in the half.
UA's Harris came back with a layup, before Sharielle Smith (Bradenton, Fla.) countered with a layup herself with 57 seconds remaining that ended the period's scoring and gave the Gators a 29-27 halftime lead.
Nine different Gators scored during the opening half, with Stewart and Thompson both tallying six points. UA's Harris scored 14 to lead all scorers during the first 20 minutes, when UF hit 38.5 percent (10-26) overall from the floor, while Arkansas shot 29.4 percent (10-34) and committed just four turnovers.
Florida returns to action on Thu., Jan. 7, when the team plays host to Auburn, with tip-off from the O'Connell Center scheduled for 7 p.m. ET. The game will be televised by Comcast Sports South (CSS) and the radio broadcast can be heard live in Gainesville on WBXY-FM 99.5 and through the internet at www.GatorZone.com, the official website of the Florida Gators.
-UF-
