ORONO – The University of Maine women’s basketball team claimed its fifth America East regular season title in seven years on Saturday afternoon as graduate student guard Anne Simon poured in a game-high 25 points and junior forward Adrianna Smith produced 23 more to lead the Black Bears to a 63-46 win over Albany at an energized Memorial Gym.
UMaine is now 21-9 overall and 14-2 in America East and will host all of its playoff games. Second seed Albany is 24-5 and 13-3 and will be the second seed.
UMaine will host a quarterfinal game at 5 p.m. on Friday against an opponent yet to be determined.
The Black Bears used a pair of runs to start and end the second period to build a 28-18 lead at the intermission and Albany could never get closer than eight the rest of the way.
UMaine scored the first 11 points of the second period to take a 20-11 lead and then scored the last seven points to close out the half.
Simon had eight rebounds and five assists to go with her 25 points. It is the fifth time in the last seven games that she has scored at least 22 points.
Smith corralled a game-high 11 rebounds giving her 21 double-doubles on the season. She added seven assists and five steals which were also game-highs.
Senior forward Caroline Bornemann contributed nine points and sophomore guard Sarah Talon had four points and three rebounds.
Senior guard Kayla Cooper’s 22 points, 10 rebounds and two assists led Albany. Junior guard Lilly Phillips contributed 11 points, three rebounds and four assists. Junior guard Meghan Huerter supplied eight points, five rebounds and two blocked shots off the bench and graduate student forward Helene Haegerstrand had five points, four rebounds and four assists along with two steals.
Freshman forward Deja Evans, who had 17 points in a 54-47 win over UMaine at Albany on Jan. 25, and graduate student guard Sarah Karpell, who had 14, were both held scoreless.
Evans grabbed eight rebounds but missed all 12 of her field goal attempts and Karpell, who got in foul trouble, missed all four of her shots.
Simon had 12 points in the first half along with five rebounds and two assists while Smith produced eight points, three rebounds, three steals and three assists. She also blocked two shots.
Phillips’ nine points and three rebounds and Cooper’s seven points and six rebounds paced the Great Danes.
