PORTLAND — The University of Maine women’s basketball team entered the America East tourney having played just one regular season game during a two-week span. That meant associate head coach Amy Vachon finally had time to implement a 2-3 matchup zone defense.
And it worked to perfection Sunday as the fourth-seeded Black Bears limited AE Player of the Year Carlie Pogue and her teammates to a 30.6 percent shooting performance from the floor and used a 13-2 run to open the fourth quarter to upset top seed New Hampshire 61-52 at the Cross Insurance Arena in Portland.
UMaine improved to 18-15 and will travel to play second seed Albany (20-11), a 67-65 winner over Hartford, in Friday’s 4:30 p.m. championship game.
UNH is a program-best 26-5 and will play in the Women’s NIT.
“Defense (won it for us),” said UMaine senior guard and captain Sigi Koizar, who had a game-high 21 points along with four rebounds, four assists and two steals.
Blanca Millan had 11 points and seven rebounds for the winners and Anita Kelava and Tanesha Sutton each contributed eight points. Sutton also had four rebounds and two steals. Fanny Wadling chipped in with seven points and seven rebounds.
Brittni Lai had 17 points and two assists for UNH and Pogue had 13 points and a game-high 10 rebounds. Kat Fogarty had eight points and four rebounds and Greene native Kristen Anderson had six points, six rebounds and three assists.
“I can’t say enough about these kids,” said Vachon “They executed the game plan to a T. They made New Hampshire work for everything. Everything was difficult for New Hampshire and it was a direct correlation to how our kids played defense.”
“It was a tough day for us,” said UNH coach Maureen Magarity. “Kudos to Maine. They had a great game plan. They really clogged the paint and we were settling for long threes or long twos. We weren’t patient enough offensively.”
UMaine used long-armed 6-foot-3 freshman Kelava and 6-1 freshman Wadling to anchor its interior defense and they had help from the guards as they tried to seal off Pogue and Fogarty.
The Black Bears forced UNH to beat them with outside shots and UNH shot just 6-for-28 from beyond the 3-point arc.
Pogue’s 13 points were four below her average. Both of Fogarty’s baskets came on midrange jumpers.
“We felt we had to win the battle of points in the paint and we did,” said Vachon whose Black Bears outscored UNH 22-13 in the paint.
She also pointed out that her team had a good day at the free throw line, going 27-for-34 (79.4 percent), after struggling most of the year.
“The threes were open the whole game. It was tough to decide which ones to take,” said Anderson. “They just didn’t fall today. It was a tough go.
“They played really well. They’re a great team,” added Anderson whose sister, Courtney, played at UMaine.
UNH also turned the ball over 19 times compared to UMaine’s nine. UMaine had 13 points off turnovers while UNH had seven.
“When you aren’t used to playing against a zone, it can cause turnovers because the slides are different. We weren’t necessarily trying to force turnovers, we just wanted to put pressure on them,” said Vachon.
UMaine was holding a 40-39 lead with 7:22 remaining when it went on its 9-0 run.
Sutton sank a pair of free throws and then hit a runner from just inside the foul line off a pass from Kelava.
Wadling fed Kelava for a foul line jumper to make it 46-39 with 5:40 left and Sutton grabbed a defensive rebound and fed Millan for a layup before Koizar’s free throw made it 49-39 with 4:12 left.
UNH reeled off a 7-1 spurt to pull within 50-46 with 1:15 left thanks to two free throws and a three-pointer by Lai.
But Lai fouled out and Koizar hit seven free throws down the stretch to secure the win.
The University of Maine’s Sigi Koizar drives to the basket against the University of New Hampshire’s Brittni Lai during their America East semifinal at the Cross Insurance Arena in Portland on Sunday.
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