Beautiful though Maine may be, any visitor from warmer places can be forgiven for feeling a chill there. (Palestra Pete himself froze his butt off one Memorial Day weekend long ago.) And the Penn women’s basketball team stepped onto the University of Maine’s court Sunday with cold shooting hands. But after that frigid start, the Quakers overtook the Maine Black Bears for a 56-52 win.
Maine had a 7-0 lead before Swedish-born Penn senior Stina Almqvist (no doubt advantaged in cold climates) put in a left-handed scoop. Another Maine basket reclaimed the seven-point advantage, but soon it was the home team that had the cold hands as Penn started a 10-point run.
Penn closed the gap to three by the end of the first quarter and held Maine to just five points in the second quarter to lead 27-20 at the break. Maine relies on the three and struggled from outside, scoring on just two of 17 attempts in the first half on the way to 8-for-33 shooting from downtown for the day.
Come to think of it, Penn was missing its threes all afternoon. The one crucial exception was freshman guard Sarah Miller, who came off the bench and went 2-for-3 on threes as part of her 10-point performance. The rest of the Quakers were a woeful 1-for-16 from beyond the arc. (And Miller is from Phoenix, so the whole theory of cold-conditioned players having the advantage in Maine may be bogus.)
Another Penn freshman, forward Katie Collins, had an auspicious start — blocking Maine’s first shot, following the six blocks she recorded in her first Penn game. And she once again was valuable across the board in the win, with eight points on 3-for-5 shooting, eight rebounds, five assists and three steals.
Penn built as much as a nine-point lead in the third quarter, but the two teams traded the lead six times, and Maine pulled ahead by a point for the final time with a bit over two minutes on the clock. But Penn sank six of its last seven shots, and Maine had no choice but to start fouling to keep Penn from running out the clock.
Penn junior guard Simone Sawyer has struggled from the field in her first two games but is always hot on defense, and she provided the backbreaking play against Maine with a steal and layup with 1:47 to go to extend Penn’s lead to three, and Maine couldn’t catch up after that.
Almqvist led Penn with 17 points on 7-of-11 shooting, plus seven rebounds and five assists. Point guard (and Georgia native) Mataya Gayle had a cold start but warmed up to go 5-for-12 from the field for 11 points.
Maine was led by forward Caroline Bornemann — from Denmark, so another cold-conditioned player — with 19 points and 11 rebounds. Olivia Rockwood (Vermont!) and Paula Gallego (Barcelona, Spain, not exactly frigid) added a dozen each.
Maine, a 24-game winner last year, slips to 1-1. Penn will put its 2-0 start on the line at home against Siena on Wednesday night and then faces St. Joseph’s, possibly its toughest opponent before Ivy play, on Friday.