In the first half of their America East semifinal, the fourth-seeded University of Maine women’s basketball team stunned top seed Albany by building four different seven-point leads.
But the Great Danes climbed to within three at halftime and outscored the Black Bears 18-11 in the third period before withstanding a fourth-quarter rally en route to 49-41 victory at the Broadview Center in Albany, New York.
Albany will host second seed Vermont, a 62-45 winner over Bryant, in Friday’s championship game.
Albany won its seventh straight game and is 16-0 at the Broadview Center.
Albany won both regular season games and has now won its last three America East playoff games against UMaine.
Graduate student forward and America East Player of the Year Kayla Cooper had a game-high 16 points to go with five rebounds, four assists and three steals. Fellow graduate students Kaci Donovan and Jessica Tomasetti had 12 points and nine points, respectively.
UMaine head coach Amy Vachon said she was very proud of her team and its fight.
“In the previous two games, we really threw everything at Kayla Cooper but today we let her go on her own for a while and tried to hold everyone else down which we really did for the most part,” said Vachon. “Most times, if you give up 49 points, you’re going to win the basketball game. But we struggled scoring. Defensively, we played a great game. We executed our game plan to a T. We did great things. Turnovers hurt us. We gave up nine points off turnovers. That’s been a bugaboo all year.”
Donovan also had five rebounds and two blocked shots for Albany, and Tomasetti had eight rebounds.
“Obviously with a score of 49 to 41, neither one of us could really buy baskets,” Albany head coach Colleen Mullen told ESPN after the win, crediting the Black Bears for being a tough team. “Maine was doing really good in that first half.”
Junior point guard Asta Blauenfeldt and senior guard Sera Hodgson each had 11 points to pace the Black Bears, who wound up 15-16.
Blauenfeldt also had two rebounds.
Junior guard Sarah Talon had eight points and six rebounds along with two steals and graduate student center Caroline Bornemann had five points and seven rebounds. Graduate student guard Olivia Rockwood had four points and two rebounds and senior guard Paula Gallego had five rebounds and three assists.
Tomasetti, who averaged a team-high 14 points per game in Albany’s two regular season victories over Maine, erupted for nine third-quarter points after being held scoreless in the first half as the Great Danes built a 38-34 lead to take into the fourth quarter.
The Albany coach was pleased with her team’s execution, especially in the second half.
“We seemed really sped up in that first half, and in the third quarter we were like, ‘Let’s go in and attack them, be aggressive,’” Mullen said after the game. “I’m just really happy with how we responded.”
Donovan and Cooper scored off driving layups in the fourth quarter to expand the lead to 42-34.
UMaine missed its first three shots of the quarter and also turned the ball over.
Bornemann broke the scoreless drought with 6:12 to go with a basket and nailed a three 1:16 later off a Gallego pass to make it 42-39.
But that was as close as the Black Bears were to get with two Lilly Phillips free throws and a Cooper basket restoring the lead to seven.
Albany entered the game allowing just 53.3 points per game, which is seventh best in the country. The Great Danes limited UMaine to just seven field goals on 24 attempts (29.2 percent) in the second half while going 10-for-27 (37 percent) themselves.
Albany took its first lead of the game in the third period with a 6-0 run featuring two baskets by Tomasetti sandwiching a Cooper layup. That made it 29-25 with 5:47 left in the period.
Talon’s layup with 29 seconds left and free throw 11 seconds later pulled UMaine within 35-34 but Tomasetti’s three with five seconds remaining in the third quarter built the lead to four.
Vachon called Tomasetti “a difference-maker” for Albany.
“Obviously they have other kids, but she runs it, she hits big shots,” Vachon said about Tomasetti. “I think she’s the difference between their team this year and last year, by far.”
Hodgson, who had scored in double figures six times this season including twice in the last four games, opened the game with a pair of threes off passes from Bornemann to stake UMaine to a 6-0 lead.
Following a Donovan layup off a Cooper pass, Hodgson hit another three this time off a feed from Gallego.
But the Great Danes closed out the first quarter with an 8-3 run to pull within two.
Hill converted a layup and Meghan Huerter and Donovan each nailed threes to offset a three by Talon.
UMaine used an 11-6 run to build the lead to 23-16 with 3:21 left in the first half with Blauenfeldt hitting a three off a Bornemann pass and also finishing a layup, Rockwood and Talon scoring on layups and Caroline Dotsey sinking two free throws.
But the Black Bears never scored again in the first half, turning the ball over on its next three possessions, and Cooper drove the lane for a pair of baskets to narrow the gap to 23-20 at the intermission.
Correction: A previous version of this story had the wrong date for Friday’s America East women’s final.