Last year was a season of discovery for University of Maine women’s basketball freshman guard Sarah Talon.
The former Windham High School star and Bangor Daily News All-State Schoolgirl first team selection was adapting to Division I basketball to the tune of 13.7 minutes of playing time per game.
She averaged 3.8 points and 1.3 rebounds per game.
Her minutes have increased to 20.8 per contest this season entering Saturday’s 1 p.m. home game against the New Jersey Institute of Technology and she has averaged 6.7 points and 2.1 rebounds per game. She has averaged 8.8 points per game in her last five games, including 10 in Thursday’s 76-47 win over the University of Maryland Baltimore County.
“Last year was about finding my role and what this team needed from me,” said the lanky 5-foot-10 Talon, who said her role has increased this year thanks to work she put in during the offseason.
“The coaches said they needed rebounding and defense from me, mostly defense. They wanted me to get stops. That’s the big thing for me. My defense needed to be better than last year. I needed to be a better one-on-one defender and I had to be in the right spot at the right time.”
She said she could rely on her athleticism to come up with stops in high school but there is more required at the college level.
“She is maturing now that she has a year under her belt,” said UMaine women’s basketball head coach Amy Vachon. “She is still figuring out what she can and can’t do, offensively and defensively. And she has done a nice job.”
The freshman season is hard, Vachon acknowledged.
“People take steps forward a lot of times and she has done that,” Vachon said. “She is a phenomenal athlete. The best we have, by far.”
Talon was an outstanding soccer player at Windham, a high-scoring forward who led the Eagles to an undefeated season and the state Class A title in 2021.
She displayed that athleticism in the opening minutes of the UMBC game.
Thanks to her leaping ability, Talon takes the opening tip-off. She won it against UMBC’s Paloma Iradier, who is 5 inches taller than Talon at 6-foot-3.
One of the things that has helped her this season is that she is stronger, physically.
“I hit the weight room and I’ve been eating more to increase my body mass,” Talon said. “I can take on contact this year and not let it take me [out].”
Her confidence has also taken a boost.
“My confidence wasn’t the best it could be last year. They kept telling me to shoot the ball and that’s a great confidence booster. Coach Amy will get mad at you if you don’t shoot the ball,” Talon said.
She took 112 shots from the floor in 29 games a year ago, including 18 3-pointers, and she already has taken 105 and 35, respectively, this season.
“I work on my shooting every day,” Talon said. “My 3-point percentage (44.4 percent) was pretty good last year but I didn’t shoot many.”
She has also been encouraged by the coaching staff to drive to the rim and she often catches opponents off-guard with a surprisingly quick first step that enables her to sprint past her defender.
“They told me they believe in me and they want me to attack [the rim] and that’s what I’ve been trying to do,” Talon said. “I work on my speed and do what I can to make my first step even quicker.”
Talon has struggled beyond the 3-point arc, shooting just 14.3 percent entering the UMBC game, but she is shooting 51.4 percent from two-point range thanks to her drives to the basket.
“She has stepped up a lot this year,” said graduate student guard Anne Simon. “You knew last year that she was going to be a big player for us. It was just a matter of her understanding her role on the team. Once she did that this season, she has done an amazing job.”
The Black Bears take an 11-7 record into the NJIT game and they are 4-0 in conference play.
Talon said getting off to a good start in conference play is nice but it is a long season and there are a lot of games still left to play.
“We take it one game at a time. We just focus on the next competition we have in front of us,” Talon said.
