ORONO – The University of Maine women’s basketball team claimed its fifth America East regular season title in seven years on Saturday afternoon as graduate student guard Anne Simon poured in a game-high 25 points and junior forward Adrianna Smith produced 23 more to lead the Black Bears to a 63-46 win over Albany at an energized Memorial Gym.
UMaine is now 21-9 overall and 14-2 in America East and will host all of its playoff games. Second seed Albany is 24-5 and 13-3 and will be the second seed.
UMaine will host a quarterfinal game at 5 p.m. on Friday against eighth seed UMass Lowell (4-23, 4-12) while Albany will entertain No. 7 New Jersey Institute of Technology (12-17, 4-12) at 7.
The Black Bears used a pair of runs to start and end the second period to build a 28-18 lead at the intermission and Albany could never get closer than eight the rest of the way.
UMaine limited the Great Danes to a 30.8 percent shooting performance from the floor including an 18.8 percent showing beyond the 3-point line.
“We did a really good job defensively,” said UMaine head coach Amy Vachon. “We locked in on what we wanted to do. Offensively, we were much better than we were when we had played them previously. We took our time and made a lot of great decisions.”
UMaine outscored Albany 19-7 in the second quarter and held the Great Danes to a 2-fo-13 shooting performance.The Black Bears also forced eight turnovers in the quarter.
Meanwhile, UMaine shot 50 percent from the floor.
“We had lapses on defense in the second quarter and they took advantage,” said Albany senior guard Kayla Cooper. “We also had a lot of turnovers that led to points for them. We didn’t take care of the ball as well as we should have.”
Albany coach Colleen Mullen said UMaine was able to do what it wanted, offensively, in the second period.
“And when you aren’t getting stops you’re used to getting, it’s hard to execute on offense,” said Mullen, who felt UMaine earned the win.
“Maine did a terrific excellent job executing their stuff. They were the better team, today,” added Mullen who called Simon and Smith “very special players.”
Simon said the crowd, featuring a vociferous group of UMaine football players, was “amazing” and played a significant role in the win.
“They were definitely a key factor in the way the game went today,” said Simon, whose mother from Luxembourg was in attendance. “It’s hard (for opposing teams) to play in this gym.”
It was Seniors Day for Simon and fellow graduate student Anna Kahelin.
Vachon said she was proud of her team.
“Winning a regular season championship is really hard,” said Vachon. “You have to bring it every single night and our players have done that, for the most part.”
Even though the Black Bear starters were nearly two inches smaller per player than the Albany starters, UMaine outscored the Great Danes in the paint 36-14.
Smith said it was a matter of “floor spacing and being smart when we got into the paint.
“They had a lot of blocks (9) in our last game so we knew how to react and we executed really well. We found the open person and shared the ball real well,” said Smith. “We penetrated, we were strong and we finished well.”
UMaine scored the first 11 points of the second period to take a 20-11 lead and then scored the last seven points to close out the half.
Simon had eight rebounds and five assists to go with her 25 points. It is the fifth time in the last seven games that she has scored at least 22 points.
Smith corralled a game-high 11 rebounds giving her 21 double-doubles on the season. She added seven assists and five steals which were also game-highs.
Senior forward Caroline Bornemann contributed nine points and sophomore guard Sarah Talon had four points and three rebounds.
Cooper’s 22 points, 10 rebounds and two assists led Albany. Junior guard Lilly Phillips contributed 11 points, three rebounds and four assists. Junior guard Meghan Huerter supplied eight points, five rebounds and two blocked shots off the bench and graduate student forward Helene Haegerstrand had five points, four rebounds and four assists along with two steals.
Freshman forward Deja Evans, who had 17 points in a 54-47 win over UMaine at Albany on Jan. 25, and graduate student guard Sarah Karpell, who had 14, were both held scoreless.
Evans grabbed eight rebounds but missed all 12 of her field goal attempts and Karpell, who got in foul trouble, missed all four of her shots.
Albany had 11 offensive rebounds in the first half but UMaine limited the Great Danes to four in the second half.
Simon had 12 points in the first half along with five rebounds and two assists while Smith produced eight points, three rebounds, three steals and three assists. She also blocked two shots.
Phillips’ nine points and three rebounds and Cooper’s seven points and six rebounds paced the Great Danes.