BANGOR, Maine — The University of Maine women’s basketball team has endured some excruciating losses at the Cross Insurance Center.
The Black Bears were determined not to give Sunday’s game away.
Sigi Koizar scored five straight points to spark an 8-0 run in overtime, helping UMaine hold off Boston College 69-64 in the championship game of the Black Bear Thanksgiving Classic.
“It’s certainly a feel-good win, there’s no doubt about that,” said coach Richard Barron, whose UMaine team improved to 3-3. “I think both teams showed a lot of heart, a lot of competitiveness.”
Junior Liz Wood was named the tournament’s Most Valuable Player, providing 16 points, nine rebounds and six assists in the win. Koizar, a sophomore guard who played one season at Stearns High in Millinocket, led UMaine with 22 points and eight rebounds and also earned a spot on the Classic all-tournament team.
Lauren Bodine scored nine points and all-tourney pick Anna Heise added seven points, three rebounds, two assists and a steal.
“I thought our composure was really great,” said Wood, whose weak-side rebound and basket with 17.2 seconds left sent the game into overtime.
“[The keys were] our defense and our rebounding down the stretch. We had some pretty big stops,” she added.
Kelly Hughes paced Boston College (4-2) with 16 points and six rebounds. Karima Gabriel contributed 12 points and eight rebounds, and Emilee Daley finished with 10 points and four steals for the Eagles. Hughes and Dalee were all-tourney picks.
Jordin Alexander of Brown also earned a spot on the squad.
The Eagles ultimately fell victim to their turnover woes, committing 12 of their 22 after intermission.
“Twenty-two turnovers is going to get you beat, so clearly Maine took care of the basketball better than we did,” said Boston College coach Erik Johnson.
“Sometimes, they did a good job exploiting our mistakes. Other times, they flat-out earned it and made big-time shots,” he added.
The difference was UMaine’s defense. The hosts held the Eagles to 29 percent shooting in the OT and limited BC to 2-for-15 shooting from the 3-point arc after halftime.
“The biggest key in the game for me is our defending the 3-point line in the second half,” Barron said.
“We were really hard on our team about that at halftime, because we didn’t want to give the game away,” he added.
In the final minute of regulation, BC led 58-56 with a chance to extend it when Nicole Boudreau was called for a violation on the front end of a bonus situation with 29.2 seconds remaining.
On UMaine’s next possession, Lauren Bodine missed a 3-pointer from the right wing, but Wood snared the rebound on the left side and scored to tie it up.
BC’s Martina Mosetti missed a runner in the closing seconds.
The Eagles grabbed the lead in overtime on two Boudreau free throws, but the Black Bears responded. Koizar kicked off the decisive 8-0 run with a 3-pointer, then made a nifty spinning, left-handed runner in the lane to make it 63-60 UMaine with 1:36 to play.
After Mikaela Gustafsson took a player-control foul by BC’s Hughes, Sophie Weckstrom fed Bodine for a 3-pointer that made it a six-point game with 1:05 left.
“You definitely get used to the pressure, but you’ve always got to be focused in those situations,” Koizar said of crunch time.
The Bears, who made 11 first-half turnovers, had only five the rest of the way, including just one after the 4:04 mark of regulation.
“We knew we had to execute better and be more careful with our passes and just try to make the easy play, break their defense down,” she added.”
BC got within 67-64 on Boudreau’s driving runner with 21.6 seconds remaining, but Weckstrom made two free throws barely three seconds later to make it a two-possession game.
“It was fun and intense and a little bit nerve-wracking coaching this game, but I enjoyed it and felt like I was coaching a team that was, for the most part, responsive to me and understanding what we were asking,” Barron said.
UMaine next plays Wednesday at Central Connecticut.
The Eagles took a 34-31 lead into the locker room at halftime after a bit of a seesaw half that featured a combined 21 turnovers.
BC led thanks in part to the long-range shooting of Hughes, who knocked down three of her team’s five 3-pointers. Most of those came against the Bears’ 2-3 matchup zone.
UMaine did outrebound BC 19-14, but allowed the Eagles to shoot 54 percent (14-for-26).
“As bad as we played in the last 4-5 minutes of the first half, we played so much better in the second half on the defensive end and taking care of the ball and in the overtime, so we made up for it there,” Barron said.
The Bears pulled in front with a 16-2 surge that turned a 13-6 deficit into a 22-15 advantage with 6:46 left in the half. Freshman Chris Gerostergiou hit two 3-pointers to help spark the run.
BC answered with a 19-6 burst during which it converted three turnovers into eight points. Included in that was a 13-4 spurt that featured Hughes’ three 3-pointers, one from Boudreau and a conventional three-point play by Daley that gave the Eagles a 34-28 edge with 1:08 to play in the half.