The University of Maine’s women’s basketball team lost their nineteen-game home conference win streak to the University at Albany on Thursday, Feb. 20. The 56-40 game threw the Black Bears back to 12-14 overall and 7-6 in America East conference play, which improved Albany’s lead in the standings.
One of Maine’s key objectives was to have “pit pride” and own the home court advantage, especially for the annual “Pink Game,” as part of the Black Bear Inn Cancer Awareness series.
The Great Danes got the first two points of the game from graduate student guard Jessica Tomasetti one minute into the game. The score stayed steady as both teams struggled to keep the ball and gave up four turnovers in two minutes. Maine broke the no-scoring spell when graduate student Caroline Bornemann got the first points of the game for Maine from a layup with 6:19 minutes remaining. Minutes later, Maine began to add up their largest lead of the night with two free throws from third-year guard Sarah Talon, a bucket from second-year forward Caroline Dotsey, and a three pointer from graduate student guard Olivia Rockwood. This gave the Black Bears their largest lead of the night by going up 12-6 before Albany responded with a jumper and a layup to end the first quarter 12-10 in favor of Maine.
Albany carried their momentum into the second quarter when first-year guard Delanie Hill got the first three points of the second quarter two minutes into the game and took the lead. They continued to go on a 14-0 run, which started at the end of the first quarter, to build up to an eight point lead, 20-12. Rockwood finally broke the scoring drought with a three-pointer to close the gap and break the Great Dane’s driving force and attempt to go into halftime with the advantage. Maine continued to chip away and was able to enter halftime with just a five point difference, the Great Danes leading 26-21. Maine went into halftime with 15 rebounds and six points in the paint.
To start the third quarter, Maine got the first points from third-year guard Asta Blauenfeldt with a deep jumper, where the Great Danes responded right away with a following jumper. The next points came five minutes later with a layup from Great Danes’ third-year center Gabriela Falco to make the score 30-23. Maine didn’t get another point until about three minutes remaining with a jumper from Dotsey, which were the only points Maine got for the remainder of the quarter. Albany was able to outscore Maine 9-2 and took a double-digit lead, 35-25, heading into the last quarter.
For the last quarter, Hodgson got a pull up for two points 30 seconds into the last 10 minutes. Blauenfeldt then got a layup a minute later to close the score to 37-29. Bornemann then got a split free throw and Hodgson scored a three pointer with Dotsey trailing behind her with another free throw. With just under five minutes left, Maine closes the score to an eight point difference after Dotsey’s layup that totaled her to 14 points for the night which was a team-high. Graduate guard Jessica Tomasetti scored two crucial three pointers to set the score back to a 10 point difference that concluded the game with a final score of 56-40.
