Anastasia Warren had a career-high and game-high 31 points on Friday evening, and Asiah Dingle added 20 more as the Stony Brook Seawolves won their first ever women’s basketball America East championship with a 64-60 win over the Maine Black Bears in the America East title game played at Memorial Gym in Orono.
Stony Brook (15-5) had a pair of four points early on, but Maine got eight points from Maeve Carroll and seven from Blanca Millan in the opening 10 minutes and ended the first quarter on a 6-0 run for a 21-16 lead. The Black Bears continued that run to 10-0 early in the second, and would have three 11-point leads before the Seawolves ended the final 2:46 of the half on an 8-0 spurt to cut it to 36-33 at the halftime break.
The visitors picked up their NCAA ranked #2 defense and would hold the guests to no points for span of 6:22 in the third quarter, and took their biggest lead of the night at 44-38 (19-2 run). Stony Brook led 45-43 as they went to the fourth. Maine kept pushing in the final 10 minutes, despite the Seawolves matching their biggest lead of six with 7:58 left. Millan, the America East Player of the Year, would score 11 of her teams points in the period and two from from line by Carroll pushed the Black Bears back into the lead 56-55 with 2:33 remaining. But Dingle and Warren came up huge again in the last two minutes as they had all evening long. A driving layup by Dingle, and a three point play by Warren on a foul by Dor Saar on a tough baseline jumper made it 60-56 Stony Brook. Millan cut it to a pair with two free throws, before Dingle did it again with a slicing layup to regain a four point lead with 31 seconds to go. Millan converted on a layup after a timeout four seconds later, and after another Maine timeout the Black Bears came up with a steal and had a chance to tie it. Saar had a three-pointer partially blocked, but Fanny Wadling went up and grabbed the loose ball but was tied up with possession back to the home team. Coach Amy Vachon called another timeout to set up a play with 16.3 seconds showing on the clock. Millan drove to the basket but came up empty, and after a pair of fouls to put Stony Brook in the bonus, Warren sank two free throws to ice the victory. Coach Caroline McCombs said after the win, “Yeah just really excited to make history with this team, and with our program is really special. Maine is a great team, we knew it was gonna be a back and forth game. Just like the two contests at our place, they got off a hot start, and I was just really proud of our perseverance throughout the whole game. But we’re pretty deep, and alot of players are able to step up especially Annie Warren today, and Asiah Dingle really took over. Just super proud of our perseverance and resilence throughout this entire season”.
Millan finished with 20 points, seven rebounds, three assists, and two steals in likely her last game as a Black Bear. She reflected on the loss and said, “It’s awful. I’ve been here before so I know how this feels. It’s been a very hard season for us but we made it this far. Onto bigger things, but the underclassmen are gonna do great, they’re good players, so it’s going to carry over”. Carroll was the only other double digit scorer with 13 points, four rebounds, and three assists. Alba Arois was a spark off the bench especially during the first half run by the Black Bears, finishing with eight points. The other seniors who may of also played their final game- Saar (5 pts, 3 reb, 3 assists), Fanny Wadling (4 pts, 4 reb, 4 assists), and Kelly Fogarty (3 pts). Maine shot 43% from the floor, but only 20% (4-20) from the three-point arc, finishing their season at 17-3. Warren shot 11-19 from the floor and added nine rebounds to her point total in the win for Stony Brook. The 31 points she scored were the most by any women’s player at the school since 2007. Dingle was 9-16 and would also add four rebounds and three steals. The Seawolves lost the turnover battle committing 19 of them, to 12 for Maine, but controlled the glass outrebounding the Black Bears 42-22. Stony Brook awaits their time, location, and opponent for the NCAA Tournament during the selection show on Monday night, while Maine could still get an invitation to the WNIT which will also be announced on Monday. Coach Vachon also reflected after the game on the loss, “Congratulations to Stony Brook, it’s a great team and Caroline (McCombs) does a great job, and hope they do really well in the NCAA Tournament and get a good draw. It’s definitely disappointing for us, especially our seniors but I am really proud of our team. Stony Brook just played a good game, and made plays when they had to make plays. Warren and Dingle just really played well and made big shots when they had to, so credit to them but really proud of our team and the season we had this year”.
