For just the third time in her head coaching career and second time this season, University of Maine women’s basketball coach Amy Vachon has lost back-to-back games against America East opponents.
The 2022-23 team lost three in a row.
Vachon and her Black Bears will look to snap the two-game losing streak on Saturday when they visit the University of Vermont for a 4 p.m. contest.
UMaine is now 7-4 in conference play and in third place after coming off road losses at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (61-56) and the University of Maryland Baltimore County 71-53.
Second place Vermont is 9-2 in conference play and 14-11 overall.
Albany is atop the conference with its 10-2 record to go with a 20-5 overall mark.
Albany doesn’t play Saturday so UVM would move into a first place tie with Albany with a win over UMaine.
UMaine hasn’t played since last Saturday while Vermont is coming off a 55-46 win at New Hampshire on Thursday.
“We didn’t have a great week last week,” said Vachon. “This season has been a roller-coaster. A week and a half ago, we were on top of the world [with a five-game winning streak].”
She said the previous week wasn’t good for players or coaches alike.
“They didn’t have a great week, the coaches didn’t have a great week and I was bad,” Vachon said.
“We weren’t good in any part of the game but that’s not a tell-tale of who we are as a team,” she added.
Vachon said they have benefitted from having a week off.
“We were able to work on ourselves. We have to get better. We have to find ourselves again,” Vachon said. “It’s a long season and we want to be playing our best basketball in March. That’s still ahead of us, we hope. We just have to keep plugging away.”
She knows her team has a big task at hand on Saturday.
Vermont will be motivated because the Black Bears beat the Catamounts in last year’s America East championship game 64-48. Then UMaine held Vermont to is lowest point total of the season on Feb. 1 in Orono as the Black Bears prevailed 45-39.
Vermont has won all five of its conference home games while UMaine is 2-4 on the road in league play.
“Vermont is a really good team and they’re going to want to win to tie Albany,” said Vachon. “It’s a hard place to play. We’re going to have to bring out our best effort.”
UMaine continues to be led by graduate student forward Caroline Bornemann, who is averaging 12.9 points and 7.8 rebounds per game. Sophomore forward Caroline Dotsey is averaging 10.7 points and 3 rebounds.
Junior guard Asta Blauenfeldt is at 8.9 ppg, a team-high 38 steals (1.6 per game) and 2.6 assists. Senior guard Paula Gallego tops the team in assists per game (3.75) and she has also produced 7.8 points and 4.3 rebounds.
Graduate student forward Anna Olson has paced UVM with 13.7 ppg, 5.2 rpg and 2.2 assists. She was held to six points in the loss to UMaine earlier this month.
She is followed by junior guard Keira Hanson (9.1 ppg), senior guard Bella Vito (7.9 ppg, team-leading 6.2 rpg and 2.2 steals and 2 assists) and redshirt junior point guard Catherine Gilwee (7.6 ppg, team-high 3.9 assists, 2 rebounds).