Liz Wood, shown here in an earlier game against UMBC, helped lead the Maine Black Bears to a conference road victory at New Hampshire Monday afternoon. Photo courtesy of Black Bear Athletics.
DURHAM, NH- Liz Wood scored a game high and a season high 23 points on Monday afternoon to help lead the Maine Black Bears women’s basketball team to a 62-52 victory over New Hampshire at Ludholm Gymnasium.
Wood also hauled down 7 rebounds and knocked down all 3 shots she took from three point range. With the 23 points, Wood also hit the 1,300 point mark and the rebounding total gave her 791 for her career which ranks seventh all time in Maine history.
Maine only shot 40% from the floor but forced 17 UNH turnovers leading to a 21-9 Maine advantage. Maine also knocked down 8 three pointers in the victory.
New Hampshire (6-11, 0-4 America East) would not go quiet in this contest however as Maine built several 7-9 point leads over the first two quarters only have the Wildcats close the gap. Maine however would get into the locker room with a 31-22 halftime lead.
Maine would build the lead up to 14 in the fourth quarter only to have Elizabeth Belanger score on three straight possessions to cut the Bears lead to 8 with just under 7 minutes to play. The Bears then nailed three consecutive shots from three point range, two by Wood and one by Lauren Bodine, to extend the lead to 15 and New Hampshire could never get the lead below 10 the rest of the way.
Sigi Koizar also had 20 points for Maine to go along with 2 rebounds and 3 assists while Bodine finished with 11 and also was able to gather in 3 rebounds.
Belanger finished with 17 points for UNH and had 8 rebounds while Carlie Pogue had 16 points and 9 rebounds. The Wildcats have now lost 9 games in a row.
Maine improves to 13-7 overall and 4-1 in America East play. Maine will return home and host Stony Brook next Sunday at 1 p.m. UNH will host UMass-Lowell on Thursday night at 7 p.m.
UME 13 18 11 20- 62
UNH 8 14 9 21- 52
Free throws: Maine 6-7 85.7% UNH 9-10 90%
