The Tulane Green Wave and Maine Black Bears womens basketball teams tipoff their season at Memorial Gymnasium on Friday, November 10, 2017. Photo by Chris Lessner.
ORONO, Maine- Kolby Morgan scored 18 points, including a late three pointer, to lead the Tulane Green Wave womens basketball team to a 42-34 win over Maine in the season opener at Memorial Gymnasium Friday evening.
The cold outside must of crept into Memorial Gym, because both teams were ice cold from the floor in the game. Tulane (1-0), shot just 2-16 in the opening quarter as Maine took an early six point lead. The Green Wave took their first lead 2:20 into the second and led 19-16 at the half, as the Bears shot 2-13 in the quarter.
A back and forth third quarter saw Tulane take their biggest lead to that point at 28-24. Maine (0-1), would run off the last six points as Tenesha Sutton nailed a three pointer as the shot clock was running out with 35 seconds left. Then after a Maine steal, Parise Rossignol buried a three pointer nothing but net as the third quarter buzzer sounded, to give the Bears a 30-28 advantage after three.
The final quarter started closely contended as well. After Tulane had gained back leads of one and two points, a Fanny Wadling layup tied the score 34-34 for Maine. Harlyn Wyatt took a nice feed down low from Sierra Cheatham to make it 36-34 Tulane. Morgan would then drain a wide open three pointer off a cross court pass from Kayla Manuiriraangi with just 2:16 left to make it 39-34. Morgan would hit 3-4 from the line to ice the win for the visitors, outscoring the hosts 14-4 in the final stanza to get a spot in the tipoff tournament title game Saturday at 2 p.m. vs Dayton.
Tulane head coach Lisa Stockton said, “First of all, I feel very fortunate to get out of here with a win. It was one of those things where it was an ugly game. Definitely a defensive battle, neither team shot great. Proud of our kids, we have alot of younger kids rotating in and out of our lineup, really glad we were able to finish those last five minutes, and that was the key for us.”
Maine was led by Sutton who had 13 points and 10 rebounds. Blanca Millan added five points and five rebounds, while freshman guard Dor Saar and Wadling added four points a piece. Wadling also added six rebounds. Maine shot just 26 percent from the floor, including 13 percent from three point range, and went 3-7 at the foul line.
Maine head coach Amy Vachon said, “Congrats to Tulane. It wasn’t the prettiest game you wanna see. I was happy with our defense. I thought we did a really good job with that. Anytime you hold a team to 42 points, you are in a pretty good position to win the game. Unfortunately for us, offense was hard to come by. When you have two quarters where you only score four points in each, you aren’t gonna win many games”.
Maine will play in the losers bracket third place game Saturday when they matchup with Harvard. Tipoff is scheduled for 4 p.m.
TUL (1-0) 10 9 9 14- 42
UME (0-1) 12 4 14 4- 34
Field Goals- Tulane (14-49) 28.6% Maine (14-53) 26.4%
Three pointers- Tulane (4-15) 26.7% Maine (3-23) 13%
Foul shots- Tulane (10-15) 66.7% Maine (3-7) 42.9%
Turnovers- Tulane 10 Maine 13
