GREENSBORO, N.C.-The Cavalier women's basketball team battled through foul trouble, led the entire first half, built six different leads of eight points or more and still managed to fall to Florida State, 83-77, in the first round of the ACC Tournament on Saturday.
Virginia (20-13) entered the tournament seeded fifth, behind a Seminole team that has had a breakout season, after being picked to finish last in the league in preseason voting. Although Virginia played a strong first half, mental errors and poor free throw shooting sunk the Cavalier ship.
"We came out and had a fairly good start," Virginia coach Debbie Ryan said. "We built three 10-point leads and just squandered them away each time. You have to give Florida State credit for hanging around because they hung around and hung around and hung around and at that 4-minute or 3-minute mark they had a surge that was too difficult to overcome."
Florida State (18-10) got a strong performance from senior Brooke Wykoff, who tied Virginia's Svetlana Volnaya for a game-high 18 points.
"It was Brooke Wyckoff that took the game over, and we didn't have anybody step up and take Brooke out of the game," Ryan said. "That kind of broke our backs."
Wykoff had several spectacular plays - including a three-pointer as the shot clock ran out - after being benched with two fouls early in the game.
Virginia's Schuye LaRue and Dean'na Mitchelson also struggled with fouls early on. LaRue fouled three times in the first half, forcing Ryan to bench her leading scorer.
"We should be able to handle it when [LaRue's] on the bench," Ryan said. "But the stretches she was out did hurt us."
Florida State continued to put the pressure on LaRue though, forcing her to the bench with her fourth foul with 7 minutes, 48 seconds left.
LaRue was held to 10 points, although she took 11 rebounds to register her 31st career double-double.
"I thought we fouled too much, and they basically won the game on the foul line," LaRue said.
The Seminoles were 30-for-40 in free throws, while Virginia was only 11-for-19.
Within a minute of LaRue leaving the court, the 'Noles claimed the lead. Two Virginia turnovers and five missed shots later, Florida State's lead grew to 10. In comparison, the Seminoles scored on 16 of their last 18 possessions.
With the win, Florida State advanced to the ACC semifinals for the first time in school history, but lost to Duke (26-4), 72-56, yesterday.
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