The University of Maine women’s basketball team stormed out to an early 10-point lead Wednesday before Tulane University took control behind guards Kolby Morgan and Leslie Vorpahl and surged past the Black Bears 77-62 in a non-conference matchup in New Orleans, Louisiana.
The win was the 11th straight at home — including six in a row this season — for Tulane, now 9-4 on the season.
UMaine suffered its second straight loss, and the 7-7 Black Bears will return to action at 2 p.m. Friday at Boston College.
Morgan, a 5-foot-8-inch junior who entered the game averaging 17.9 points per contest, scored a game-high 26 points on 11-of-15 shooting from the field.
Several of her baskets were set up by Vorpahl, a senior who totaled 24 points — including the 1,000th of her career — and a game-high 11 assists.
“Tulane deserves a lot of credit for their individual play,” UMaine coach Richard Barron told Learfield’s Don Shields after the game. “Morgan and Vorpahl are very good one-on-one players. Our team defense sometimes did a good job and then late shot clock they’d put you in a blender and spin on you and make some shots.”
Sophomore center Harlyn Wyatt added 12 points for Tulane, 10 after intermission.
Senior guard Sigi Koizar led UMaine with 24 points — including six of the Black Bears’ 11 3-point goals — and seven rebounds, but the 87.5 percent free-throw shooter on the season coming into the game made just 4 of 8 tries from the line.
As a team, UMaine made only 7 of 15 free throws, 4 of 11 during the fourth quarter.
“The other thing is the free-throw shooting has to be better, and when we get wide-open layups in transition we’ve got to make them,” Barron said.
Freshman guard Julie Brosseau added 11 points for the Black Bears, including three 3-pointers.
UMaine, which began the game shooting just 29 percent from beyond the 3-point arc, made 8 of 16 tries from long distance in the first half to take a 34-31 lead into intermission.
Koizar, who didn’t score until hitting a 3-pointer in the final seconds of the first quarter, added three more 3-pointers in the second period to finish the half with a team-high 12 points and four rebounds.
Tulane got little done inside, with UMaine outrebounding the Green Wave 17-12, but Tulane’s tandem of Morgan and Vorpahl each scored 12 first-half points on a combined 9 of 13 shooting from the field, 5 of 6 from 3-point land.
Tulane made 6 of 10 3-point tries overall during the first half.
UMaine never trailed during the opening 20 minutes, jumping out to a 6-0 lead 2:25 into the contest as freshman center Fanny Wadling sandwiched two baskets around a layup by classmate Laia Sole.
The Black Bears built their early lead to as much as 13-3 on a drive by Tanesha Sutton, who played the game’s first seven minutes before suffering an ankle injury. She missed the remainder of the first half and finished the game with six points and five assists in 23 minutes.
Tulane erased nearly all of its deficit by the end of the period. Vorpahl notched her 1,000th career point on a free throw that made it 16-13 UMaine with 1:46 left, and Morgan buried her second 3-pointer of the quarter to cut the gap to 19-18 before Koizar scored from long range to give the Black Bears a 22-18 edge.
UMaine made just four field goals during the second quarter, but all were 3-pointers as the offensive pace slowed on both sides.
Tulane pulled within 25-23 on a 3-pointer by Vorpahl with 8:46 left in the half, but the Green Wave then went more than four minutes without a point.
Brosseau made her second 3-pointer of the half to give UMaine a 28-23 cushion, and two Koizar 3-pointers extended the Bears’ advantage back to 34-25 before Tulane closed out the half with six unanswered points, four by Morgan.
That Tulane run grew to 10-0 at the outset of the second half as the Green Wave went inside for baskets by Wyatt and Courtnie Latham, with Latham’s midrange jumper giving her team its first lead at 35-34.
That marked the first of five straight lead changes before Tulane took off, outscoring UMaine 18-8 over the final 6:33 of the third period to take a 55-46 lead.
UMaine closed back within 57-52 on a 3-pointer by Brosseau with 9:03 left in the game, but Tulane outscored the Black Bears 10-1 over the next 3:55 to build its advantage to 67-53 and put the game away.
“We’re not far away from beating a good team like this on the road,” said Barron, “but we didn’t have the discipline.”
