The Gator women’s basketball team (6-4) effectively snapped its three game losing streak on Sunday afternoon after escaping with a 59-54 victory over Stetson (7-3) at the O’Connell Center.
It was not a pretty sight offensively for either team as they both shot under 40 percent from the field and committed over 20 turnovers. The Gators had just one player, guard Carlie Needles, who scored in double figures with just 10 points.
Although neither team played their best basketball of the season, the Gators were able to get the win by gaining the upper hand in a number of key categories. In the paint, the Gators outscored Stetson 30-20 and outrebounded them 47-39. UF also had 19 offensive rebounds, six of which came from guard Kayla Lewis.
“I mean, you just give your team another chance to score. You get more opportunities and I think the team that has the most opportunities will win, so just getting more rebounds just gives us the ball more,” said Lewis. “It’s just kinda like in football, if you have the ball more, time of possession, you’re more likely to win. And I think that’s the same thing with rebounding in basketball, you wanna give your team as many chances to score as you can.”
The Gators capitalized on Stetson’s mistakes by scoring 25 points off of their 26 turnovers and managed to outscore their bench 20-8 despite shooting just 34 percent from the field.
“I’m just really proud of our overall effort. I think Stetson’s a really good team, I think it’s a postseason team. I think they were coached very well…had a great game plan coming in,” said Gator head coach Amanda Butler. “There’s a lot of familiarity on that staff down there, one of our former managers is an assistant coach. So, they knew a lot of things we were gonna do and I think that was great for us to have to overcome that…and to do it with a lot of composure and a lot of toughness.”
The Gators will try to win two in a row when they face Southern University next Sunday to begin the Gator Holiday Classic. Tipoff for that game is set for 2:30 pm but you can catch live coverage of the game on ESPN 850 WRUF starting at 2:15.
To listen to the audio mentioned above, click below:
Butler on the team overcoming challenges