ORONO, Maine — The top-seeded University of Maine women’s basketball team found itself trailing 41-31 midway through the third quarter of Monday’s America East semifinal against No. 5 Binghamton.
But the Black Bears used a dramatic game-ending 21-7 run to rally past the Bearcats 64-58 at a raucous Memorial Gym on Monday night.
UMaine overcame an eight-point deficit over the final 7:30 of the contest.
Now 22-9 and winner of 11 of its last 12, UMaine will take Vermont in Friday’s 5 p.m. title game.
Binghamton wound up 14-17.
Graduate student guard and conference leading scorer Anne Simon, held to just four points in the first half, erupted for 21 second-half points and junior forward Adrianna Smith poured in 16 of her 26 after the intermission.
Smith finished with seven rebounds, eight assists and three steals to go with her game-high 26 points. Simon wound up with 25 along with eight rebounds, three assists and four steals. Senior guard Olivia Rockwood chipped in with 10 points.
Redshirt sophomore guard Jadynn Weltz had 25 points for Binghamton as she shot 80 percent from the floor (8-for-10) including a 5-for-7 showing from beyond the 3-point arc.
She also had four rebounds and four assists.
Graduate student guard Denai Bowman had 13 points and four rebounds and junior forward Genevieve Coleman had eight points and three rebounds. Redshirt sophomore guard Ella Wanzer contributed six points and four rebounds along with two assists.
Weltz’s 3-pointer with 7:30 remaining gave Binghamton a 51-43 lead before UMaine tied it with an 8-0 run.
Smith passed to Rockwood for a 3-pointer to start the run before Smith used a nifty move inside to bank in a short layup.
Simon capped it with a 3-pointer to tie it 51-51.
“I was really happy it went in,” said Simon. “It kind of changed the momentum. And, from there, we felt we were okay and we got this. This is our gym, we aren’t going to lose.”
Following a Binghamton turnover, Smith used a spin move inside to give UMaine the lead for good with 5:27 left.
Each team missed its next shots before Binghamton committed a shot clock violation with 4:02 left.
Smith again scored inside to make it 55-51 before Weltz hit a driving layup to end the 12-0 Black Bear spurt.
Rockwood hit a layup with 2:55 to go but Weltz hit a pair of free throws with 1:43 on the clock to make it a two-point game.
Simon’s two free throws restored the four-point lead and Smith rebounded a Denai Bowman miss. UMaine called a timeout, and Paula Gallego was inserted into the game to inbounds the ball. She lofted a high arching pass over the head of a Bearcat defender to Smith for a layup to make it 61-55 with 52.5 seconds left.
Weltz hit a three with 10 seconds remaining but three Simon free throws sewed up the win.
The Black Bears outscored Binghamton 24-13 in the fourth quarter and the Bearcats had eight of their 21 turnovers over the final 10 minutes.
“I’m so proud of our team,” said UMaine head coach Amy Vachon. “We could have mailed it in, down by 10 halfway through the third quarter, but we didn’t and [Smith and Simon] led it and we needed every single point that they gave us, every single rebound, steal and assist.
”But other kids stepped up, too. [Rockwood]’s two threes and layup in that run; Anna Kahelin played amazing defense in the second part of that second half. Paula’s pass to [Smith] was a huge play and then [Caroline Bornemann] gets that tip at the end,” added Vachon referring to a play by Bornemann in which she deflected a Bearcat pass.
“While [Smith and Simon] will get a lot of the headlines as they deserve it but it was completely a team effort all the way around.”
Simon hit six of her eight field goal attempts in the second half, including two of her 3-pointers, after going 2-for-10 in the first half and missing all four of her threes.
Simon said she may have rushed her shots in the first half.
“In the second half, we had to change something. We were down by 10. So I just kept shooting the ball when I was open. When I made my first three, that cut the lead to five and gave us some momentum. And I got the confidence again,” said Simon. “And when [Rockwood] hit her layup, we got momentum. There was a different energy on the bench than the first half.”
Binghamton shot a sizzling 81.8 percent from the floor in the third period (9-for-11) but the eight fourth quarter turnovers limited them to just nine field goal attempts.
“They were just driving to the basket in the third quarter and we weren’t guarding it how we were supposed to. We weren’t locked in like we should have been,” said Vachon. “In the fourth quarter, our team just made a choice that they didn’t want their season to end. So they started executing defensively. Our team started to make them a little more uncomfortable.”
“We’ve been in this situation before,” said Smith. “We all have confidence in each other. We weren’t making shots (in the first half) but we knew [Rockwood] wasn’t going to keep missing them and Anne wasn’t going to keep missing them. And being at home, having these fans here, that energy makes a big difference when you’re down 10.
“I was really proud of us and the grit that we showed and the mental toughness,” said Smith.
Bearcats closed out the first half with a 6-0 run to take a 23-19 lead into the intermission.
The Black Bears went scoreless over the final 6:03 of the half, missing all 10 of their field goal attempts and turning the ball over twice.
UMaine finished the game with a 31-11 edge in points off turnovers and a 12-2 advantage in second chance points thanks to a 16-6 edge in offensive rebounds.
“You aren’t going to beat a Maine team that can score like they can score, giving them second chance opportunities. And our turnovers. We didn’t take care of the basketball,” said Binghamton coach Bethann Shapiro Ord.
