There’s one, adventurous way for a basketball team to counter a four-to-five-inch height disadvantage in the low post: Double-team those tall orders and triple dare wide-eyed perimeter players to cash in.
Friday afternoon at the NCAA women’s semifinal in Norfolk, Va., those daredevils from Millikin University made the University of Southern Maine pay dearly for long distance.
No. 6 Millikin dropped eight 3-pointers on No. 4 Southern Maine, freeing the Big Blue’s 6-foot-2 tandem of Joanna Conner and Lindsay Ippel to put the finishing touches on a 66-60 victory over the Huskies at Jane Batten Center on the campus of Virginia Wesleyan University.
Lindsey Koehn and Christi Blackburn each knocked down three trifectas. Point guard Audrey Minott swished a pair.
Six players saw the floor for the Big Blue, and five reached double digits as Millikin (28-2) shot 42 percent from 3-point land, won its 15th consecutive game and advanced to its first-ever final.
Millikin meets Randolph-Macon of nearby Ashland, Va., at 3 p.m. today.
The frustrating finish snapped a 28-game winning streak for USM (30-3), which faces Scranton (Pa.) in the consolation game at 12:30 p.m. Scranton, which eliminated Bowdoin College in the Elite Eight, fell 70-65 to Randolph-Macon in the other semifinal.
USM’s two regional all-star juniors were sensational. Megan Myles of Auburn scored a career-high 28 points and Ashley Marble added 27 points and 16 rebounds. But that accounted for more than 90 percent of the Huskies’ offense.
“I thought Southern Maine was everything everyone said they were, and more,” Millikin coach Lori Kerans said.
Donna Cowing (three points) and Shannon Kynoch (two) were the only other Southern Maine players to score. Starting guards Katie Frost and Katie Sibley were shut out, a far cry from the shared burden that hoisted the Huskies to a record-smashing season.
USM shot 34 percent from the field.
“We had nine players score in double figures this season,” USM coach Gary Fifield said.
Gradually undone by the Big Blue’s better balance, the Huskies held on to a 28-28 tie at halftime and nursed a three-point lead, 40-37, with 11:10 left.
Minott nailed a trey to tie it, and sophomore reserve Blackburn piggy-backed it a minute later with another to trigger a 17-6 run.
Held in check by the Huskies in the first half, Ippel and Conner combined for a quick six and boosted the Big Blue to a 54-46 advantage with less than seven minutes remaining.
USM sliced the gap to four on three separate occasions. And it seemed like the third time was a charm when Trish Sylvain’s steal set up a 4-on-1 break.
Kynoch missed the uncontested lay-up, but Marble was there for the follow to leave the Little East Conference champions within a deuce, 62-60, with 26.1 seconds left.
But the Big Blue, typically a spotty free-throw shooting team, held their ground when Minott and Blackburn drained four straight freebies.
Millikin made 10 of its last 12 from the line.
Koehn scored 13 of her team-high 17 points in the first half. Ippel, a freshman who played on the Big Blue’s junior varsity team for most of the year, added 11 after averaging 23 in her first three tournament games.
Blackburn and Conner each finished with 13 points. Minott tacked on 10.
The 5-11 Myles and 5-9 Marble dominated the taller Conner, Ippel and 5-11 Laura Zimmerman from the opening tap, limiting them to a combined four first-half points.
Millikin’s guards couldn’t cash in their early open looks. The Huskies held the Big Blue scoreless until Koehn’s transition hoop at the four-minute mark. That was Millikin’s only field goal until Zimmerman zipped the ball to Koehn for a 3-pointer with 10:45 remaining.
“It’s what you’ve been doing all year that kicks in,” Kerans said. “Usually it’s our post game that dominates in the first half, but today it was the 3-point shot that was our primary game.”
The Big Blue eventually scored on four straight possessions, highlighted by Koehn and Blackburn bombs, and transformed a five-point deficit into a 17-12 edge.
Back came the Huskies.
Myles delivered another haymaker from downtown with 1:45 to go. Sixty seconds later, Marble showed she’d recovered from an earlier collision with Conner by hitting her second bonus ball of the half for a 28-25 USM lead.
Blackburn had the final say, firing from the hip off a Koehn feed with 28 seconds left to tie it.
Minott was the only senior seeing playing time for either team.
This was Southern Maine’s fourth Final Four appearance in Fifield’s tenure. The Huskies were national runner-up in 1998 and 2000.
Fifield was named NCAA Division III Coach of the Year at an awards banquet Thursday night.
“It’s something you think about but don’t imagine you will ever win,” Fifield said. “It’s truly a staff award.”
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