ORONO – It was a rosy first half for the University of Maine women’s basketball team in Sunday afternoon’s non-conference game against James Madison University.
The Black Bears nailed 10 3-pointers en route to building a 41-33 lead.
But the Dukes erupted for 29 third-quarter points, outscoring UMaine 29-16 to take a 62-57 lead after three quarters. They never trailed the rest of the way en route to a 78-71 victory at the Memorial Gym Sunday afternoon.
The much taller Dukes improved to 8-3 while UMaine fell to 6-5.
The Black Bears were short-handed with senior guard Olivia Rockwood and junior guard Sera Hodgson out due to injuries.
Anne Simon’s 3-pointer to open the third quarter closed the gap to two but that was as close as UMaine would get as JMU responded with an 8-2 run.
Redshirt sophomore guard Peyton McDaniel had eight points in the third quarter and 6-foot-4 Russian center Kseniia Kozlova had six to rally the Dukes.
Kozlova finished with 20 points and five rebounds. McDaniel had 18 points and 10 rebounds. Jamia Hazell added 12 points, four rebounds and two assists. Olivia Mullins finished with nine points and six rebounds and Steph Ouderkirk produced seven points and eight assists.
Graduate student guard Simon poured in a game-high 34 points, matching her career high against Indiana on Nov. 30. She also had seven rebounds and four assists. Junior forward Adi Smith had 19 points and nine rebounds along with five assists and sophomore guard Jaycie Christopher had 11 points.
JMU shot a blistering 61.1 percent from the floor in the third quarter (11-for-18) while the streak- shooting Black Bears shot just 31.6 percent and went 2-for-9 beyond the 3-point arc.
JMU sank just one 3-pointer in the first half.
Simon torched the Dukes for 18 first-half points thanks to a 5-for-9 showing beyond the 3-point arc. Christopher added three threes on just five attempts for her nine points.
UMaine was 10-for-24 from long distance compared to James Madison’s 1-for-3 performance.
Smith had seven points for the Black Bears and Bornemann contributed five points and five rebounds which was the game high through the first 20 minutes.
Simon also had four rebounds, two assists and two steals. Smith had four rebounds and three assists.
Kozlova’s 12 points, Mullins’ seven and McDaniel’s six points paced the Dukes. McDaniel had four rebounds and Kozlova had three. Steph Ouderkirk had four assists.