University of Georgia Athletics
University of Georgia
Florida
Florida Edges Georgia 74-71 In Gainesville
February 27, 2011 | Women's Basketball
Feb. 27, 2011
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GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- Jaterra Bonds scored 22 points, including a free throw with 9.4 seconds left, to lead Florida (17-13, 7-9 SEC) to a 74-71 win over No. 22 Georgia (20-9, 10-6 SEC) in both teams' regular-season finale on Sunday.
Jasmine James paced Georgia with a game-high 23 points, while Porsha Phillips added a double-double of 15 points and 17 rebounds. Anne Marie Armstrong and Khaalidah Miller also reached double figures, scoring 12 and 11 points, respectively.
The Lady Bulldogs led by eight late in the first half before the Gators outscored Georgia 13-0 over the final 1:23 of the opening period and the first 3:23 of the second stanza.
"I thought that in this game, as we did against Auburn on Thursday, we did a good job building a nice lead, but when we did we killed ourselves with turnovers," Andy Landers said. "We got it too big of a hurry and stopped our own momentum in the process."
A Jasmine Hassell stickback knotted the score at 47-47 with 12:46 left, but the Gators quickly regained a seven-point, 60-53 advantage, just 3:16 later.
Georgia rallied again and took its first lead of the second half at 66-65 on a James free throw at the 4:06 mark, but Bonds immediately answered with a three-pointer.
The Lady Bulldogs went back on top 71-70 when Armstrong hit two free throws with 1:12 on the clock before a Jennifer George lay-up with 48 ticks remaining gave the Gators the lead for good.
Georgia trailed by two with 22 seconds left when Meredith Mitchell was whistled for a charging foul attempting a tying lay-up. Bonds made one of two free throws to put Florida up by three, but the Lady Bulldogs failed to get a three-point attempt off before the buzzer sounded.
After three ties and pair of lead changes early in the contest, Phillips put back a missed free throw to put Georgia up 16-14 with 11:28 left in the period and the Lady Bulldogs methodically expanded that margin.
Georgia led by six after a James lay-up with 7:56 on the clock, went up by seven on a Mitchell three at the 5:30 mark and secured an eight-point advantage on a Phillips lay-up with 2:55 remaining.
The Lady Bulldogs led by six with 1:23 in the period before the Gators scored the final half dozen points and tied the game at 35-35 on a pair of Ebonie Crawford free throws just 1.3 seconds before intermission.
"We missed a lot of lay-ups tonight, and we were 16-of-25 from the free throw line," Landers said. "When you combine those two things, it's hard to overcome that, especially on the road.'
The Lady Bulldogs will be the No. 4 seed at next weekend's SEC Tournament at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tenn. Georgia will receive a first-round bye for Thursday's opening day and at 7:30 p.m. on Friday will face the winner of the match-up between No. 5 seed South Carolina and No. 12 seed Ole Miss.
