No. 3 NC State survives in overtime against No. 22 Florida State after River Baldwin exits early with injury

No. 3 NC State’s offense ran through graduate center River Baldwin for the first three quarters against No. 22 Florida State on Thursday night. She found a rhythm on the court and the Pack stuck with it while she was the most dominant player on the floor. 

But at the end of the third quarter, the tide turned. Baldwin went down with an ankle injury after she lost her footing trying to establish herself in the post. NC State was without its prolific post player, who did it all against her former team, but the Wolfpack was able to weather the storm. 

Florida State did enough to force overtime, but NC State was able to pull past the Seminoles 88-80 at Reynolds Coliseum to win its 14th straight contest to open the campaign. 

Baldwin led the Wolfpack with 21 points and eight rebounds in the first trio of quarters before she left the game early. After she left the floor, NC State’s players didn’t panic. Instead, they wanted to finish what she started. 

“We did it for River, for real,” NC State junior guard Aziaha James said. “She came from that school, so she definitely wanted to beat them. It was hard for us to see her go down, so I feel like as a team we took it upon ourselves and did it for her at the end.”

In overtime, it was all NC State thanks to a pair of timely 3-pointers. The Pack did not shoot well from beyond the arc in regulation — 1-of-13 — but something clicked in the extra period.

Senior guard Madison Hayes kicked the bonus time off with a triple from the top of the key before James joined the party with a trey as the shot clock expired. 

“I think when I hit the first three I was like, ‘Ok, we’re good,’” Hayes said. “We were more worried about getting back on defense. … But this is what we came to do. And then [James] hit a big three down the stretch and we needed that.”

Those two clutch shots from deep gave NC State an 8-2 run to start overtime, and that was all the breathing room the Wolfpack needed to pull away from the Seminoles. 

The win marked the Pack’s third ranked victory of the season — then-No. 2 UConn, then-No. 3 Colorado and now the 22nd-ranked squad to open the home ACC slate. NC State remains one of two ACC teams with multiple ranked victories this season, Louisville is the other. 

Those two big wins from the non-conference slate gave NC State the confidence it needed when Baldwin left the floor early. The Pack battled a tall task against UConn when it trailed by as many as eight, so a tight game against another high-level squad was nothing new for the balanced NC State roster. 

“I feel like we’re resilient,” Hayes said. “I feel like we can fight through adversity in any type of way. We played UConn, Colorado, now Florida State. I feel like we’ve proven to ourselves that we can fight through adversity. The more we do that, the more we’ll win.”

NC State battled the adversity and did it with a scoring by committee approach. The Pack had one player in double figures through the first three periods, Baldwin, but it ended the game with five with 10 or more. 

James had 18 points, while freshman guard Zoe Brooks scored 15, junior guard Saniya Rivers had 12 points and Hayes chipped in with 11. 

The Wolfpack is not sure how long Baldwin will miss with what NC State coach Wes Moore described as an ankle that was “pretty well turned.” NC State’s small-ball lineup with graduate forward Mimi Collins in the post did enough to get the job done against the Seminoles. 

But before the red and white can get comfortable, a top-15 matchup awaits with a road trip to No. 13 Virginia Tech on Sunday in Blacksburg, Va. While that’s on the horizon, Moore was pleased with his team’s ability to handle losing its leading scorer against the Seminoles to come out with the overtime win at home. 

“Proud of the grit we showed,” Moore said. “Obviously River Baldwin was playing at a high level and when she went out, they were able to make a good run. … It would have been real easy for us to hang our heads. They stepped up, hit some big shots, got a few stops.”