Jan. 10, 2001

Box Score

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Led by Brooke Wyckoff's game-high 22 points, the Florida State women's basketball team improved to 11-3 on the season with a 69-38 win over Maryland Wednesday night at the Tallahassee-Leon County Civic Center. FSU improved to 3-1 in the ACC and moved into a tie for first place in the league while the Terrapins fell to 10-5 overall and 1-3 in the ACC.

"I want to applaud my team's defensive effort tonight," FSU Head Coach Sue Semrau said. "I don't know if I've seen us play better defense than I did tonight. We came out of a semi-shooting slump that we had on Monday night to shoot the ball very well. We reversed the ball very well and everyone contributed. Brooke stepped up and had one of the best games I've seen her play in a long time."

The Seminoles took control of the contest early, scoring the first eight points and had a 27-18 lead at halftime. Florida State's largest lead was 14 points at 22-8 at the 6:36 mark and then Maryland made a run. The Terps ran off eight straight points to pull within six at 22-16 with just under two minutes remaining, but the Tribe closed the half strong with a 5-2 run. FSU shot 48 percent from the field and held Maryland to 22 percent shooting. The Terps had a 19-16 rebounding edge. The Noles were led by Wyckoff's eight points while Katelyn Vujas added six points and a team-high five rebounds.

The Tribe scored the first seven points of the second half to take an 18-point lead at 15:56. Maryland pulled to within 14 a minute later, but that was the closest the Terps would get. FSU again went on a spurt, running off seven unanswered points and went up by 21 and led by at least that many the rest of the game. Trailing by 23 at 61-38 with 2:35 remaining, the Terrapins were held scoreless the remainder of the game while FSU finished the game on a 7-0 run for the 31-point victory.

In addition to Wyckoff, April Traylor tallied double figures for Florida State with 16 points and added six rebounds. Wyckoff led all players with nine rebounds while Levys Torres added seven points and seven rebounds. The Seminoles shot 46 percent for the game and outrebounded Maryland 38-36. The FSU defense held the Terps to 25 percent shooting from the field and caused 24 Maryland turnovers.

"Defense is our emphasis every game obviously," Wyckoff said. "I think we've been playing really good defense but we know that it has to be the best thing every game. We really concentrated on it and talked a lot out there and played like the experienced team that we are and it really paid off."

Maryland didn't have a player reach double figures in the game. Marche Strickland and Kiki Wimbush each had nine points to lead the team. Crystal Washington led the team with seven rebounds.

"We haven't played well in two games back to back now," Maryland Head Coach Chris Weller said. "Anytime another team dominates the paint as much as Florida State does, they deserve to win and it was 30-12 in the paint which was very uncharacteristic for a Maryland team. We will just work hard to try to solve the mystery of this dilemma we're in. Florida State played harder than we did. I thought their defense was very good, better than ours."