ORONO – University of Maine senior guard Paula Gallego scored a career-high 21 points, connecting on 8 of her 10 field goal attempts, and junior guard Sarah Talon from Windham poured in 18 more to lead the University of Maine women’s basketball team to a 65-51 win over La Salle University at the Memorial Gymnasium on Monday.
It was a mutual season-opener and the first ever Field Trip Game at The Pit, with children from seven local schools in attendance.
Gallego had 10 rebounds and three assists to accompany her 21 points which were eight more than her previous scoring high.
Talon had two rebounds and two assists in addition to her 18 points and shot 5-for-6 from 3-point range. The five 3-pointers is a career-high.
Graduate student guard/forward Caroline Bornemann added 12 points and a career-high 14 rebounds for the Black Bears.
Transfer point guard Asta Blauenfeldt had a game-high six assists to go with five points. Senior guard Idan Shlush also had five points.
“You can hope for a day like this but it’s all confidence,” said Gallego. “It’s all about knowing that the shots are going to go in. We’ve been working as a team a lot on that. Getting the confidence and knowing that your shot is going in.
”If you’re open, the instruction is to shoot,” said Gallego.
With last year’s leading scorer Anne Simon (18.9 points per game) playing pro basketball in Italy and No. 2 scorer Adrianna Smith (16.4 ppg) sidelined for the year due to knee surgery, UMaine head coach Amy Vachon said “we’re going to need other people to step up. There are a lot of shots that are available with Anne and Adi gone now and so we’ve talked a lot about being ready. You can’t pass up shots that you typically did in the past.”
Vachon praised Gallego’s shot selection.
“Paula was really good right from the start. She was really aggressive looking for her shot. She is so efficient and so smart. She knows where to go, where she’ll be open and her getting the rebounds she did was really important,” Vachon added.
“Someone has to fill that void,” said the 6-foot-1 Gallego, who was 4-for-6 from long distance. “I took a lot of shots today but it could be anyone, really.”
Vachon said it was nice to see Talon have a good shooting performance, especially from beyond the arc.
“She was a 19 percent shooter (from long range) last year. You can tell she’s worked on her shot,” said Vachon.
“I focused on what I needed to work on during the offseason and put in the work. My coaches and teammates believe in me so I just shoot when I’m open and keep going from there,” said Talon.
Ayisse Magassa’s 13 points, three steals, three rebounds and two assists paced the Explorers, who have 13 newcomers.
Joan Quinn had 12 points, three rebounds, two assists and two steals and Ashleigh Connor had eight points, four rebounds and four steals. Jolene Armendariz had a team-high nine rebounds to go with six points.
Gallego and Talon accounted for 24 of UMaine’s points in the first half with 18 of those points coming via 3-pointers.
Gallego had 13 points thanks to 3-for-5 shooting beyond the 3-point arc.
Talon scored 11 points and went 3-for-4 from long distance.
Gallego also grabbed six rebounds.
Bornemann also had six rebounds to go with four points and three assists.
UMaine used a 14-2 run spanning the first and second quarters to break a 9-9 tie and build a 23-11 lead.
Talon had a pair of threes and a layup and Gallego had two threes.
But the Explorers went to a zone trap in the second period and forced seven turnovers which helped them whittle the deficit down to seven at the intermission.
UMaine used a 10-4 spurt in the third quarter to extend its lead to 48-38.
LaSalle was able to pull within six, 48-42, with 6:58 remaining but UMaine went on a 7-0 run to build the lead to 55-42 and the Explorers couldn’t get any closer than nine the rest of the way.
Gallego started the 7-0 run with a free throw and then Olivia Rockwood fed Bornemann underneath for a base line basket. Talon then drove the lane and then dished the ball to an open Gallego for a layup and Rockwood finished off the rally with two foul shots.
UMaine shot 41.8 percent from the floor (23-for-55) and 34.5 percent from long range (10-for-29) and also outrebounded the taller Explorers 40-36.
They limited La Salle to a 33.3 percent shooting performance from the floor (20-for-60) and 15.4 percent from long distance (2-for-13).
“We made things difficult (for La Salle),” said Vachon. “It’s a tough game because we had no idea what they were going to do or who they were going to play. So you have to trust your basics and your principles and guard that. Our team did a really good job of that and a great job on the boards.”
“We have a lot of new players and Maine is pretty experienced,” said La Salle assistant Jeryn Reese. “We had a rough time taking away the 3-point line this game.”
UMaine will host Penn on Sunday at 11:30 a.m. while La Salle will host Delaware on Saturday.