Experience is key for Danes
TROY — Championship experience paid off for the University at Albany women’s basketball team in its quarterfinal win over Umass Lowell on Wednesday night.
In a close-fought game, the No. 2 Great Danes (21-10) stayed calm, eventually pulling away in the fourth quarter for a 59-51 victory at Hudson Valley Community College.
“We trust in each other so much and we know that we have each other’s backs, so even when the opponent gets in a run or gets closer to us, we always know that we just need to come back together and we’re fine. We never feel frantic or pressed in those situations,” fifth-year guard Ellen Hahne said.
The No. 7 River Hawks (5-22) kept pace with the Great Danes and held a two-point lead with a minute left in the second quarter before junior guard Kayla Cooper made a pair of free throws to tie it up heading into halftime.
“We knew that we were missing some shots that we usually make and we aren’t really getting all the stops that we might want to, but it was still a tie game so we felt pretty calm,” Hahne said.
The back-and-forth action continued after halftime: Ualbany started the third quarter with a 5-0 run to take their biggest lead of the game, and Umass Lowell answered with eight straight points to lead by three.
When Ualbany built another slim lead, sophomore forward Amaya Dowdy erased it with an offensive rebound — one of her seven on the night — and a threepoint play.
“I think rebounding was super huge for us. As mostly everybody in the league knows, our game has a lot to do with transition, and if we don’t rebound and if we don’t get stops we can’t get out and run in transition,” Umass Lowell coach Denise King said.
Ualbany senior guard Grace Heeps laid out for a loose ball and got it to senior forward Helene Haegerstrand for a turnaround jumper, and Cooper drove down the court for a layup at the thirdquarter
buzzer to give Ualbany a four-point lead at the end of the period. Cooper finished with 13 points, eight rebounds and three assists.
“When you want something so bad, you have a tendency to press and to go faster and to push more, and as coach you’re just trying to remind them to do what we do best, stay consistent,” Ualbany coach Colleen Mullen said. “Their experience and their will to win and their commitment to each other really took over.”
The Great Danes extended their lead to seven points early in the fourth, but the River Hawks cut it to two points before Hahne drained two big 3-pointers with less than five minutes remaining, and Umass Lowell couldn’t make another run. Hahne had 12 points and seven boards.
Umass Lowell had won three
games in a row to earn its playoff berth. Dowdy and graduate guard Mili Carrera had 12 points each, and Dowdy had 11 rebounds.
Ualbany wasn’t the only top seed to face a tough battle in the quarterfinals, nor was it the only top seed to prevail. All of the quarterfinal games were decided by 11 or fewer points, with UMBC’S 82-71 decision over NJIT the biggest win of the day, and all were won by the higher seed.
“Every game is going to be crazy this whole run. Everyone wants the same thing, so we just have to come with the same intensity that we always have and just stay together,” Cooper said.
The Great Danes will host No. 3 Maine in a semifinal at 3 p.m. Sunday.