Danes surge in 3rd to win
23-6 run helps give team best league start in seven years at 4-0
The University at Albany women’s basketball team stayed undefeated in the America East with a 62-38 win at UMass Lowell on Saturday afternoon.
The Great Danes (10-8, 4-0 America East) are off to their best start in conference play since the 2015-16 season, when they went 15-1 and made it to the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
Last year’s team went 3-0 to start the conference schedule before losing to then-winless Hartford on the road. UAlbany coach Colleen Mullen reminded the Great Danes of that loss before the game.
“When we played Hartford, they believed they were going to win the game. They never acted intimidated to play us, regardless of our record … and I knew UMass Lowell was going to do the same,” Mullen said. “And I made sure the players knew, like, they think that they’re going to beat you because they’re a confident team, and they will beat you if we don’t show up and play the way we’re capable of playing.”
In the first half, it looked like the River Hawks (1-12, 0-3) had a chance to repeat Hartford’s success. The River Hawks and Great Danes scored just four points each in the second quarter, and UAlbany, which had led by as many as 10 in the first quarter, took a six-point lead into halftime.
The Great Danes recovered with a 23-6 third quarter and finished with their third-biggest win of the season.
Fifth-year guard Ellen Hahne led UAlbany with 14 points, three assists and three steals. Senior forward Helene Haegerstrand had 12 points, seven of which came in the third-quarter burst, and senior guard Grace Heeps had eight points on 3for-3 shooting and a team-high six rebounds. Ten Great Danes
had at least one field goal.
Sophomore forward Amaya Dowdy had 15 points, eight in the first quarter, seven rebounds and three steals for the River Hawks. Senior guard Jaliena Sanchez added nine points and three assists.
UMass Lowell took an early lead on baskets from Dowdy and junior guard Jaini Edmonds, but UAlbany junior guard Kayla Cooper got to the line for two free throws and Heeps hit her first 3 of the night to give UAlbany a lead it wouldn’t relinquish. But, up 10 points with just more than two minutes left, the Great Danes missed chances to push the advantage.
“We still kind of looked like we were going up soft, like we weren’t playing kind of our style of basketball, in terms of just being aggressive,” Mullen said.
Offense was harder to come by in the second, as UAlbany went more than eight minutes without a basket between the end of the first and the start of the second quarter and UMass Lowell scored just one basket in the period. Senior guard Fatima Lee, Mullen’s go-to for an offensive spark, had UAlbany’s only two field goals in 12 attempts.
“We were getting good looks at the basket, but we just weren’t finishing strong. We were getting some offensive rebounds and just coming up empty,” Mullen said.
The River Hawks didn’t fare any better, getting two free throws from sophomore guard Ivory Finley early in the period and ending it with a layup from senior guard/forward Kaylen Banwareesingh in the final minute.
The Great Danes made up for it after halftime, making their first six shots and using a 19-3 run to open up a 20-point lead while holding UMass Lowell to six points in the quarter.
“We just talked about, that we were going to be the tougher team and we weren’t going to react to things that we didn’t have control over. That we were going to stay together, we weren’t going to show our frustration, but we were going to play harder,” Mullen said
The Great Danes finished 45.3 percent from the field (24for-53) and a season-high 58.3 percent from 3 (7-for-12). The River Hawks finished 15-for-50 from the field (30 percent) and 1-for-17 from 3 (5.9 percent), a season low.