BANGOR, Maine — The University of Maine women’s basketball team was without second-leading scorer Julie Brosseau for Monday’s America East game against visiting Vermont at the Cross Insurance Center.
But they did have leading scorer Blanca Millan and the sophomore guard poured in a game-high 23 points, grabbed 10 rebounds and contributed three steals and three assists to lead the Black Bears to a 64-55 win over the Catamounts.
“She’s a really, really talented player,” said Vermont coach Chris Day.
The Black Bears also received valuable contributions from junior guard Tanesha Sutton (15 points, five rebounds, three assists), freshman guard Dor Saar (11 points, three rebounds, two assists) and sophomore forward Fanny Wadling (seven points, nine rebounds, three steals, two assists) en route to their 10th win in 18 games.
Parise Rossignol had five points, two rebounds and two assists.
The Black Bears are 3-2 in America East and now have eight straight home wins over Vermont and victories in nine of their last 10 meetings with the Catamounts.
Vermont fell to 5-12, 2-2.
“A lot of players stepped up today,” said Millan.
“I was proud of our team,” said UMaine interim head coach Amy Vachon. “We talked a lot today and yesterday about about overcoming adversity. We got hit with some different things in the Albany game (64-50 loss on Saturday) and we didn’t respond that great.
“Today, without Julie and having some kids sick, I thought they really focused in on what we needed to do and, offensively, they played real well together. It was a good team win,” added Vachon, whose team lost Brosseau to her ankle injury just three minutes into the Albany game.
Six-foot-three sophomore forward Hanna Crymble parlayed a variety of nifty inside moves into 21 points for the Catamounts and she also hauled down four rebounds. Kristina White finished with 11 points and career 1,000-point scorer Sydney Smith had nine to go with five rebounds and two assists. Candice Wright had five points and six rebounds and Cassidy Derba also had six rebounds while Katie Lavelle dished out four assists.
Millan had 13 of her points in the first half along five rebounds, three assists and two steals and she played an integral role during an 11-0 run spanning the first and second quarters that turned a one-point lead into a 28-16 advantage.
She had five points and a clever baseline pass to Sutton for an uncontested layup during the flurry.
UMaine led 33-25 at the half and Vermont wasn’t able to get any closer than five the rest of the way. Whenever the Catamounts closed to within five, the Black Bears were able to answer and extend the lead.
“And the problem was they usually answered off an offensive rebound,” said Day, who used a kneel-on scooter due to a surgically-repaired broken ankle. “They had 19 second-chance points and that was a killer for us today. That was really disappointing. We got them to miss some shots but we didn’t capitalize by getting the rebound.”
UMaine had a 19-9 edge in second-chance points thanks to its 15-6 advantage in offensive rebounds and took 65 shots to UVM’s 43.
UMaine held a 35-32 edge in total rebounds.
“We really focused on rebounding. In this conference, it’s really important. We did a real good job,” said Millan who added that whenever they were able to extend their possessions with an offensive rebound, they usually scored.
Another key was the Black Bears’ ability to protect the ball. They turned the ball over a season-low four times after averaging 20.75 turnovers through their first four league games.
“Coach Vachon and the other coaches talked about it before the game and our goal was to take care of the basketball,” said Saar. “We focused on it more.”
UMaine’s player-to-player defense was effective as it held UVM to four 3-pointers in 12 attempts. UVM had averaged 7.25 on 25.6 attempts per game.
UMaine will travel to play Hartford on at 7 p.m. Thursday.
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