In the first half of their America East semifinal, the fourth-seeded University of Maine women’s basketball team stunned top seed Albany by building four different seven-point leads.
But the Great Danes climbed to within three at halftime and outscored the Black Bears 18-11 in the third period before withstanding a fourth-quarter rally en route to 49-41 victory at the Broadview Center in Albany, New York.
Albany will host second seed Vermont, a 62-45 winner over Bryant, in Saturday’s championship game.
Albany won its seventh straight game and is 16-0 at the Broadview Center.
Albany won both regular season games and has now won its last three America East playoff games against UMaine.
Graduate student forward and America East Player of the Year Kayla Cooper had a game-high 16 points to go with five rebounds, four assists and three steals. Fellow graduate students Kaci Donovan and Jessica Tomasetti had 12 points and nine points, respectively.
Donovan also had five rebounds and two blocked shots and Tomasetti had eight rebounds.
Junior point guard Asta Blauenfeldt and senior guard Sera Hodgson each had 11 points to pace the Black Bears, who wound up 15-16.
Blauenfeldt also had two rebounds.
Junior guard Sarah Talon had eight points and six rebounds along with two steals and graduate student center Caroline Bornemann had five points and seven rebounds. Graduate student guard Olivia Rockwood had four points and two rebounds and senior guard Paula Gallego had five rebounds and three assists.
Tomasetti, who averaged a team-high 14 points per game in Albany’s two regular season victories over Maine, erupted for nine third-quarter points after being held scoreless in the first half as the Great Danes built a 38-34 lead to take into the fourth quarter.
Donovan and Cooper scored off driving layups in the fourth quarter to expand the lead to 42-34.
UMaine missed its first three shots of the quarter and also turned the ball over.
Bornemann broke the scoreless drought with 6:12 to go with a basket and nailed a three 1:16 later off a Gallego pass to make it 42-39.
But that was as close as the Black Bears were to get with two Lilly Phillips free throws and a Cooper basket restoring the lead to seven.
Albany entered the game allowing just 53.3 points per game, which is seventh best in the country. The Great Danes limited UMaine to just seven field goals on 24 attempts (29.2 percent) in the second half while going 10-for-27 (37 percent) themselves.
Albany took its first lead of the game in the third period with a 6-0 run featuring two baskets by Tomasetti sandwiching a Cooper layup. That made it 29-25 with 5:47 left in the period.
Talon’s layup with 29 seconds left and free throw 11 seconds later pulled UMaine within 35-34 but Tomasetti’s three with five seconds remaining in the third quarter built the lead to four.
Hodgson, who had scored in double figures six times this season including twice in the last four games, opened the game with a pair of threes off passes from Bornemann to stake UMaine to a 6-0 lead.
Following a Donovan layup off a Cooper pass, Hodgson hit another three this time off a feed from Gallego.
But the Great Danes closed out the first quarter with an 8-3 run to pull within two.
Hill converted a layup and Meghan Huerter and Donovan each nailed threes to offset a three by Talon.
UMaine used an 11-6 run to build the lead to 23-16 with 3:21 left in the first half with Blauenfeldt hitting a three off a Bornemann pass and also finishing a layup, Rockwood and Talon scoring on layups and Caroline Dotsey sinking two free throws.
But the Black Bears never scored again in the first half, turning the ball over on its next three possessions, and Cooper drove the lane for a pair of baskets to narrow the gap to 23-20 at the intermission.
