ORONO – The University of Vermont’s defending America East champion Catamounts dealt the University of Mane’s women’s basketball team a rare home loss at the hands of an America East opponent on Jan. 15, 64-53.
The Black Bears will look to return the favor at 11 a.m. Thursday when they invade the Patrick Gymnasium in Burlington, for their final regular season matchup with Vermont.
The league-leading Catamounts are 19-5 overall and 8-1 in the conference while UMaine is 11-11 and 6-3.
UVM has won six straight and is 9-0 at the Patrick Gymnasium.
The Catamounts’ victory on the Skip Chappelle Court in the Memorial Gym was just the fourth home loss in 33 games for the Black Bears vs. an America East opponent over the last three-plus seasons.That includes playoff games.
UMaine head coach Amy Vachon said her Black Bears are going to have to play better defense than they did in the earlier matchup.
“We really didn’t give ourselves a chance last time,” said Vachon, who noted that their transition defense was particularly poor. “Simple things that we lost focus on and they’re just too good. They take advantage of it.”
The Black Bears have to defend better this time around, she said.
Vermont outscored UMaine 14-3 in fast break points and 13-2 in second chance points.
The Catamounts outrebounded UMaine 36-23 including a 10-4 edge in offensive rebounds.
“We have to really focus on our details,” said UMaine fifth-year senior forward Adrianna Smith. “They’re a great team. You can’t just come out and play. You have to be really smart against them because they’re a really smart and a really talented team.”
Six-foot-two senior center Nikola Priede did an exceptional job guarding America East scoring leader Smith with help from her UVM teammates, limiting Smith to 15 points.
“We learned a lot from our game last time,” said UMaine senior guard Sarah Talon, who also had 15 points in the loss. “Transition defense is a really big one. We have to limit our turnovers and we have to limit their easy touches and make everything a little more difficult for them.”
Offensively, Smith said the Black Bears are going to have to take what Vermont gives them.
“It may be different than what other teams give us. We have to take our time and not force anything,” Smith added.
In addition to leading America East in scoring at 21.5 points per contest, Smith also leads the conference in rebounds (9.5 per game) and assists (4.8). She is 13th in the country in scoring and tied for 34th in rebounding.
Senior guard Asta Blauenfeldt is averaging 12 ppg to go with 1.9 steals and 1.9 assists.
Talon has averaged 8.4 points, 4.8 rebounds, 1.8 assists and 1.4 steals.
Freshman guard Lala Woods is also averaging 8.4 ppg.
Priede has paced the Catamounts by averaging 17.5 points and 8 rebounds per game along with 2.2 assists. Senior guard Keira Hanson is averaging 14.2 ppg, redshirt senior guard Jadyn Weltz has produced 11.8 ppg along with 4.5 assists and 4.2 rebounds.
Junior guard Malia Lenz has chipped in 7.7 points and 6.7 rebounds for Vermont.
Hanson had 20 points in the earlier win over UMaine along with two rebounds, two steals and two assists. Priede had 16 points, five rebounds, three steals and two assists and Lenz contributed 14 points, 10 rebounds, four assists and three steals.