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ORONO – Even if you put together a loaded offensive performance, sometimes it still isn’t enough.
Unfortunately, the University of Maine women’s basketball team had to learn that lesson the hard way as a defensive meltdown in the Black Bears’ Tuesday night match up with the University of Vermont came at the most inopportune time – not only in the game, but in the season as well. With the 80-74 loss, the Bears fall to 6-6 in America East – 12-11 overall – while the Catamounts take sole possession of third place at 6-5 – 16-8 overall.
“I thought our girls played really tough defense,” said Vermont head coach Sharon Dawley. “Down the stretch, our young players had some great plays and we did a great job getting to the rim.”
With 5:25 remaining, freshman Courtnay Pilypaitis netted the backend of two foul shots to bring Vermont within two at 70-68. After a missed layup, a turnover gave the Catamounts a fast-break opportunity that was thwarted by a Katie Whittier block. However, on the ensuing inbound, sophomore reserve Sy Janousek nailed a pull-up jumper on the baseline to tie the game at 70 all at 4:12.
“We kept telling our players this was the biggest stop of the game, and then they’d come in and we’d say this is the biggest stop of the game,” said Dawley. “We knew that we had the momentum and if we could get a stop, that’d get us over the top.”
UMaine couldn’t convert on either of their next two possessions and freshman May Kotsopoulos hit a lay-up with 2:44 remaining to put the game away.
The Catamounts had four starters in double-figures, led by senior guard Brittany Cross’ 21 points, five assists and seven steals. Sophomore Amy Rosenkrantz added 19 points and three steals and Kotsopoulos finished with 16 points. The 6-0 guard Pilypaitis contributed 11 points and four assists.
Ashley Underwood led the way for UMaine with 20 points, six rebounds and seven assists, and Bracey Barker chipped in 14 points, five rebounds and five assists. Whittier went 6-for-6 from the floor and finished with 12 points.
“The whole UMaine team is very, very good, but we thought if we could lock in on Underwood and Barker and make someone else do the scoring I thought we’d have a better chance to win,” said Dawley. “We kept telling our players this was the biggest stop of the game, and then they’d come in and we’d say this is the biggest stop of the game. We knew that we had the momentum and if we could get a stop that’d get us over the top.”
The Black Bears led by as many as 11 early in the second half and found themselves in a scramble to stay alive offensively and unable to stop Vermont’s scrappy guards.
“Our defense was horrible,” said Underwood. “We allowed middle penetration every time . we just didn’t close the deal.”
“They started running on us and we didn’t respond, they did it four times in a row,” said Barker. “When one thing broke down we didn’t stop it, we let it go; there are four games left in-conference, we can’t have that.”
UMaine returns to action when they travel to Massachusetts to take on Boston University. Tip-off is set for 1 p.m. The final home game of the season, and senior night, will be Saturday, Feb. 24 when the Bears take on UMBC at noon.
