BANGOR, Maine — University of Maine senior guard Sigi Koizar and her teammates celebrated their first home game since Nov. 12 by scoring the game’s first five points and never looking back Wednesday night en route to a 68-49 victory over Northeastern University at the Cross Insurance Center.
Koizar scored those five points with a 12-foot jump shot and a 3-pointer and she had three more during a game-opening 13-4 run.
NU never got closer than six.
“It was a great win. Even though our teams are different, it was nice to avenge last year’s (56-44) loss,” said UMaine coach Richard Barron. “It’s good to be back home. We shot the ball well early in the game. They played more zone than I thought they were going to play but we adjusted well.”
“We always like to get off to a good start,” said Koizar.
Freshman forward Laia Sole scored a game-high 16 points for the Black Bears (4-5) and Koizar finished with 14 points, all of them coming in the first half, to help UMaine build a 37-22 halftime lead.
Sole also had four rebounds and three assists while Koizar contributed three steals, three rebounds and two assists.
Freshman guard Julie Brosseau netted 11 points in just 17 minutes including five points in a 10-second span in the third period to snap a run of seven unanswered points by Northeastern that had reduced the deficit to 42-31.
UMaine led by double digits the rest of the way.
Barron said he was also pleased with his team’s defense.
“We had 11 steals which is outstanding,” said Barron, who wasn’t happy with the 20 offensive rebounds corralled by NU.
Northeastern (2-7) lost its seventh straight contest. Sophomore forward Gabby Giacone had a game-high 18 points for the Huskies, who shot just 27.7 percent from the floor and 19.2 percent from beyond the 3-point arc.
Giancone also had a game-high nine rebounds. Claudia Ortiz had 15 points for NU along with four rebounds and four assists. Leading scorer and rebounder Francesca Sally got into early foul trouble and was held to two points, 11 points below her average.
She did grab seven rebounds as NU outrebounded UMaine 47-38.
Koizar hit a 12-foot jumper to open the game and nailed a 3-pointer to expand the lead to 5-0. After Zoe Zwerling hit a 12-foot baseline jumper for Northeastern’s first points of the game, Tanesha Sutton fed Blanca Millan for a baseline runner and she was also fouled and converted.
Giacone converted an Ortiz pass to make it 8-4 but Koizar hit another 3-pointer from the left side of the key and Sole banked in a shot off a spin move to make it 13-4.
UMaine was holding a 15-9 lead when it went on an 8-0 run to generate its largest lead of the game at 23-9. Brosseau continued her string of hitting a 3-pointer in every game by canning one from the left corner to trigger the surge.
Sutton fed Sole for a six-foot baseline jumper and Sole then passed to Koizar for another 3.
Giacone converted back-to-back jumpers in the second quarter to pull the Huskies within eight but UMaine strung together another 8-0 spurt with Millan sinking a 3-pointer from the corner and converting a Sole pass on a back door cut before another Koizar three made it 31-18.
Ortiz’s 3-pointer and consecutive baskets by Giacone in the third quarter gave the Huskies a lifeline at 42-31 but Brosseau took a Sole pass and hit a 3 and then Naira Caceres stole the ball and fed Brosseau for a 10-foot jumper.
Sutton finished with a game-high seven assists along with five rebounds. Millan and Caceres had eight points each.