UMBC women’s basketball lost to the University of Maine, 56–42, on Sunday as the Retrievers fell to 1–6 on the conference season.
Maine got off to a hot start in the first half, outscoring the Retrievers by 12 points. The Retrievers responded with a strong second half, but it was not enough to make up the gap.
UMBC was hurt by Maine’s three point shooting as well as rebounding. The Black Bears shot 36 percent from beyond the arch and they out-rebounded the Retrievers by 13. UMBC topped Maine in other important statistics, such as points in the paint and points off turnovers. The Retrievers scored 21 points off turnovers, while Maine only picked up 12.
Junior guard Capree Garner had another strong performance for UMBC, scoring 13 points as well as picking up five rebounds and one assist. Nine of those 13 points came in the first half, which was the most on the team.
Sophomore guard Taylor McCarley also supplied quite a bit of offense with a team-high six assists paired up with six points. McCarley was the only Retriever to clock in all 40 minutes of the game.
UMBC also saw solid production from sophomore forwards Pandora Wilson and Amanda Hagaman off the bench. Wilson secured four rebounds as well as nine points, good for second on the team. Hagaman picked up four points and two rebounds in 20 minutes of play.
The loss continues a tough month of January for the Retrievers. They have won only one game this month, a 68-61 victory against the University of Vermont. This was preceded by a December where UMBC played seven straight road games, which is a great strain on a young team.
“You have to prepare for the unexpected. With a young team we are working on how to play in our system,” Coach Phil Stern said about the stretch of road games.
The month has also been characterized by tough conference road games like at the University of New Hampshire and University of Hartford. Both teams are in the top five of the conference and having to play them on the road makes the win even tougher to achieve.
The Retrievers are nearly halfway through their conference season and they currently occupy eighth place in the conference. The good news is that the University of Massachusetts Lowell and the University of Binghamton are both within one game of UMBC. The Retrievers are also only three games behind Hartford and the University of Stony Brook, with nine games to go.
With two games against Binghamton and one home game against UMass Lowell, the Retrievers are in prime position to move up in the standings. As the new semester begins and the final stretch of the basketball season comes, the Retrievers will have their eye on a higher seed for the conference tournament.