BANGOR, Maine — There’s only one way to win when the offense isn’t clicking, and that’s to play good defense.
The University of Maine was clicking on all cylinders early but wound up riding a gritty defensive effort to a 53-38 women’s basketball victory over Dartmouth College on Wednesday night at the Cross Insurance Center.
The Black Bears have won five in the row, the first time that has been accomplished by a UMaine team since the home stretch of the 2005 regular season under coach Sharon Versyp.
“Coach (Richard) Barron does a really good job of keeping us honest and keeping us humble and making sure we’re working every day to get better no matter how many wins we’ve had in a row,” said UMaine junior Liz Wood.
The Black Bears (6-3) shot only 37 percent for the contest, but the team limited the Big Green to 38 points and forced several of their 23 turnovers to record their fifth straight victory.
“We had a couple of letdowns, but overall I think we did a good job rotating against the shooters, packing the paint when we had to,” said sophomore guard Sigi Koizar, who paced UMaine with a game-high 19 points that included 7-for-7 shooting from the foul line.
She also pulled down seven rebounds and provided four assists and two steals.
Nobody else reached double figures for the Black Bears, who received nine points, two assists and three steals from Sophie Weckstrom; seven points, five rebounds, five steals and two assists from Wood and seven points and four rebounds from Anna Heise.
Dartmouth shot 41 percent, but UMaine outscored the Big Green 13-0 from the foul line and churned out 27 points as a result of the visitors’ turnovers.
“When your shots aren’t falling I think it’s even more important to focus on the defensive end,” Wood said.
“That’s definitely something I focused on tonight was rebounding, boxing out and trying to get steals,” she added.
Lakin Roland sparked Dartmouth (5-3) with 15 points and nine rebounds, and Fanni Szabo finished with 11 points (11 below her average) and six rebounds.
UMaine gained the upper hand with a 19-7 run that began late in the first half and extended more than halfway into the second period. It came after Dartmouth put together an 11-2 surge during which the Black Bears went 0-for-10 from the floor.
“I think there was a period there where we got tight and we kind of lost our aggressiveness,” Barron said.
“We missed about 10 in a row and nobody else wanted to shoot again,” he added.
Koizar ended the drought with a driving layup at 3:01 of the first half. Christiana Gerostergiou and Weckstrom then sandwiched 3-pointers around a 12-footer by the Big Green’s Kate Letkewicz to provide the Bears with a 26-17 halftime advantage.
UMaine then had a key stretch of 7½ minutes early in the second half during which Dartmouth did not score and pushed its lead to 39-22 on Mikaela Gustafsson’s cut to the hoop off a Charles pass with 9:20 left.
“I thought we got back to moving the ball and even when we didn’t necessarily score, we got back to the free-throw line in the second half,” Barron said.
UMaine was clicking at the offensive end early and made seven of its first 11 shots to open the contest.
The hosts played strong defense, starting out primarily in player-to-player, then switching back to their 2-3 matchup zone. Both limited close-range shots by the Big Green, who hit some tough shots late in the shot clock to avoid exacerbating the team’s turnover woes.
Dartmouth committed seven turnovers during the first 6:33, which helped UMaine put together a 14-2 run that paved the way to a 16-4 lead with 12:57 to play in the period.
The Bears scored 14 points as a result of miscues by the Big Green, which had nine turnovers in the half.
Koizar kicked off the initial surge with a reverse layup from the baseline, then Weckstrom scored on a back-door cut off an Heise pass, and Koizar cashed in on her own steal. Heise’s 3-pointer made it 11-2 UMaine.
Fanni Szabo ended Dartmouth’s drought with an 18-footer, but Weckstrom scored off her own steal, and Bella Swan drained a 3-pointer to put the Bears on top 16-4.
UMaine then went through a protracted offensive slump, missing 12 shots in a row. Roland led Dartmouth by hitting three shots, including an uncontested 3-pointer, to get the visitors back within 18-15 with 5:02 left in the half.
However, the 3-pointers by Gerostergiou and Weckstrom helped the Bears regain the momentum before the break.