The University of Saint Joseph’s Hawks got the better of the University of Maine Black Bears on Friday night.
Just barely.
The UMaine women’s basketball team opened its season at home in Orono, and almost provided the Black Bear faithful a come-from-behind win against the strong team from Philadelphia.
But a spirited fourth quarter run from UMaine fell one point short, with Saint Joe’s getting the win 63-62.
UMaine got Redshirt Adrianna Smith back after a knee injury kept the talented forward out all last season. And Smith shined in her return to the court, pouring in 25 points and hauling down 13 rebounds.
Senior guards Asta Blauenfeldt and Sarah Talon added 16 and 10 points respectively for UMaine.
Gabby Casey led the way for Saint Joe’s with 19 points, followed by Faith Stinson with 16.
Hawks guard Jill Jekot added 11 for the visitors, including a three-pointer to put Saint Joe’s up 12 with just over four minutes to go. At the time, it looked like the game might be out of reach for the Black Bears.
But the home squad made things interesting fast.
Smith made a three of her own to cut the Hawks lead to nine. Then Talon got her own rebound and put it back in for two to cut the deficit to 58-51 with around 3 minutes to play.
The teams traded a few free throws, then the Black Bears picked up a key defensive stop with less than a minute left.
With the ball back in her hands on offense, Smith drove the lane from the top of the key and picked up another two points with a layup. That cut the Hawks lead to 60-57 with 23.9 seconds left.
Hawks guard Rhian Stokes made a foul shot on the other end to stretch the lead to four.
Smith saw two shots just barely miss on Maine’s final possession, and Blauenfeldt buried a three-pointer at the buzzer after a scramble on the offensive boards. But the Black Bears still fell 63-62 despite their spirited effort in the fourth quarter.
UMaine head coach Amy Vachon said her team’s effort down the stretch showed her something about its resolve early in the season.
“I’ve seen competitiveness in our practices, but it’s nice to see it in a game,” said Vachon, who noted that competitive drive had been missing during a recent scrimmage. “I thought that was nice. I thought our bench was really good. I wasn’t sure about that coming in, and I thought they had good minutes when they played.”
The opening game provided some good takeaways as well as areas for the Black Bears to work on, Vachon said. She pointed to the team’s eight-for-16 night from the free-throw line as one of those facets in need of improvement.
“Look, we lost by a point and we shot 50 percent from the free-throw line. So that hurts,” Vachon said. “But I think we can learn from it, and we can keep going.”
Next up for UMaine is a tough matchup against North Carolina State University, the ninth ranked team in the country. The Black Bears will travel to Raleigh, North Carolina for that 7 p.m. Tuesday matchup against the Wolfpack.
Vachon said that every team on UMaine’s non-conference schedule is good.
“So we’re gonna take our bumps,” Vachon added. “But if we can learn from these lessons, that will be important.”