The University of Rhode Island’s surging women’s basketball team scored the game’s first nine points and never looked back en route to a comfortable 63-43 victory over the cold-shooting University of Maine’s Black Bears at the Ryan Center in Kingston, R.I., Sunday afternoon.
The Rams have now won seven in a row after a season-opening loss to Harvard while the Black Bears lost their third straight and fell to 3-6.
Junior forward Maye Toure paced URI with 13 points and 8 rebounds, both game-highs.
Graduate student guard Sayawni Lassiter added 11 points, five steals and three assists for URI.
Dolly Cairns notched seven points and two assists, Ines Debroise had six points, three rebounds and three assists and Emmi Rinat finished with six points and four rebounds.
URI’s Anaelle Dutat grabbed seven rebounds to go with three points.
Freshman guard Jaycie Christopher from Skowhegan led the Black Bears with a career-high 12 points as she nailed all four of her 3-pointers. Sophomore guard Sera Hodgson had 10 points, junior forward-guard Caroline Bornemann wound up with eight points and junior guard Olivia Rockwood had seven points and two assists.
Sophomore forward Adrianna Smith didn’t score but had a team-high seven rebounds and her three assists also led the team.
URI jumped out to a 9-0 lead on Emma Squires’ 3-pointer and layups by Toure, Lassiter and Debroise over the first 5:12 of the contest.
During the 9-0 run, UMaine missed five shots and turned the ball over four times.
Abbe Laurence’s free throw with 3:46 left in the period was UMaine’s first point and Hodgson sank a three with 2:01 to go.
Those were UMaine’s points in the first period as URI built a 15-4 lead.
UMaine never got closer than nine points the rest of the way.
The Rams expanded the lead to 29-17 at the half and 48-32 after three quarters.
“We just didn’t bring it today,” said disappointed UMaine head coach Amy Vachon to Van Wagner/Black Bear Sports Properties play-by-play announcer Don Shields. “Up until today, I felt all of our outings were really solid. I don’t feel that way today.
”We’re going to figure it out and get ready for Thursday,” she added in referring to Thursday night’s home game agant Fordham.
URI shot 48.9 percent from the floor (23-for-47) compared to UMaine’s dismal 29.6 percent (16-for-54). URI was 3-for-11 beyond the 3-point arc (27.3 percent) while UMaine shot 36.8 percent (7-for-19).
The taller Rams outrebounded UMaine 40-23 and outscored UMaine in the paint 40-18.
Each team turned the ball over 17 times.
