GORHAM – Kaylie DeMillo chomped her chewing gum, glared into the eyes of a Bates College defender and unleashed the move that a career’s worth of Mountain Valley Conference and AAU opponents still see in their sleep.

Crossover dribble. Pivot foot planted, the other stepping back to join it behind the 3-point line. Set shot from behind the head. Swish.

Bates women’s basketball coach Jim Murphy shouted out a little desperate instruction over the din of the 800-or-so gathered at Hill Gymnasium to anyone who might listen: “You’ve got to come out on her.”

Yes, you certainly do.

In only her third collegiate game, DeMillo scored the University of Southern Maine’s first 13 points of the second half Tuesday night, more than tripling a five-point halftime lead and handing the nationally-ranked Huskies a 76-57 non-conference victory.

DeMillo, a 5-foot-7 guard from Jay, logged career highs of 16 points and 18 minutes. She’s averaging a fraction beneath double digits for the retooled Huskies, who won their third game in four nights to christen the season.

“It’s new,” DeMillo said of the Southern Maine experience, minutes after making it look routine as her four years of high school heroics. “You’ve just got to keep your head up and try to be confident and try to work in with the girls.”

No longer the lone star, DeMillo has the privilege of working on an assembly line for a program that has made five journeys to the Final Four. If there is a marquee player for the Huskies, it’s junior Stacey Kent, who led all scorers with 20 after her own 17-point run in the second half for Southern Maine.

Ten players scratched their name in the scoring column for the Huskies, exhibiting the luxury head coach Gary Fifield will have to bring along DeMillo slowly. The boss is already raving about his prized recruit, however.

“She’s very confident. If she misses a shot, it doesn’t bother her,” Fifield said. “She’s aggressive. She’s an athlete. She’s played very well for a freshman. Very, very well. She’s just a tough kid.”

With four minutes remaining in the game, DeMillo and Kent were still the only Huskies to score in the second half. And the performers Murphy expected to rise up and match those two shot-for-shot, didn’t.

USM shut out Matia Kostakis in the first half and did the same to Val Beckwith in the second. It was Kent who did the number on Beckwith. Sarah Barton led Bates (0-1) with 13 points and five assists, but only on 4-of-13 shooting.

“They were ripping the ball out of our hands. We hold it like we’re playing against Lewiston Middle School instead of one of the best teams in the country,” Murphy said. “And it was the upper-class players who were doing it. I was very disappointed with that. You know the saying about experience: It’s the comb life gives you after you’ve lost your hair, right?”

Beckwith’s nine points and six each from senior Barton, sophomore Lauren Yanofsky and first-year Maggie DePoy kept the Bobcats alive through a first half that featured five lead changes and three ties.

Kostakis finally broke through with a pair of buckets shortly after the break, each bringing Bates within three. But DeMillo then nailed a 3-pointer from the right wing, recovered her own errant pass for an uncontested drive, and drained her step-back trey – all in a span of a minute and six seconds – and pushed the lead to double digits for good.

“Kaylie’s different (than most freshmen), because she has a lot of confidence. That’s what’s driving her right now,” Kent said. “That’s why she’s doing well, because she doesn’t have any fear. She doesn’t care. She’s just like, ‘I’m going to take over right now.’ “

Yanofsky finished with 10 points for Bates, which shot 25 percent from the field in the second half. Gray-New Gloucester graduates Josalee Danieli and Dawn Ross combined for 15 to spark Southern Maine.