UNE caps perfect conference slate with CCC tournament title

BIDDEFORD — With a total of eight on its 16-player roster, the University of New England women’s basketball team has relied heavy on its freshmen class all season.

But never more so than during the Nor’easters 69-63 victory over Salve Regina in the Commonwealth Coast Conference tournament championship game on Saturday.

After seeing their 16-point halftime lead cut to just two by the Seahawks with 5:42 remaining, the young Nor’easters easily could have folded. Instead, the rookies stepped to front and center, with 15 of the team’s final 16 points coming from freshmen as UNE hung on for a 69-63 triumph and the third conference crown in school history.

The win, the Nor’easters 19th in a row, caps a perfect 21-0 season against CCC competition, and earns UNE a berth in the NCAA Division III women’s national tournament.

“What we tell the freshmen is that they’re not freshmen anymore. They’re sophomores by now, and they have to play that way for us to succeed,” said UNE coach Anthony Ewing. “It speaks to the leadership of this team that those kids can really afford to play confident in those situations because of what they’ve learned from our seniors. They learn from our seniors to see if they’re managing, so that’s a credit to everyone.”

In front of a packed and partisan home crown, the Nor’easters had gotten off to a flying start, using an 18-0 run over a 5:29 span midway through the first half to open up a 28-10 lead.

Salve responded with an 11-0 run of its own to get back within eight, but the Nor’easters were also able to answer, ending the half with an 11-3 flourish, including the last six from Alanna Vose, to lead 39-23 at the break.

Averaging a modest five points a game coming in, freshman Vose scored 12 total in just eight first-half minutes on 4-of-5 shooting, while as a team UNE shot 50 percent (15-of-30) over the first 20 minutes.

“I was just pumped up and ready to go,” Vose said of her first-half performance.

Still, the job wasn’t close to done.

“Business wasn’t finished,” senior forward Beth Suggs said of halftime. We still had 20 more minutes to go and the fact that Salve was going to come out even harder, we knew they were going to come out on runs.

UNE’s players may have knew that a Salve run was coming, but that didn’t mean they could stop it, at least over the first 15 minutes of the second half when the Seahawks slowly but surely chipped away, making things 53-51 on a pair of Meaghan Harden free throws with 5:42 to play.

“They as a team have so much pride that they were never really going to go away and quit,” Ewing said of Salve. “We have a lot of respect for that whole team and their coaching staff.

“But we’ve been in that position before. We have a really great record and going undefeated in conference and during this tournament has been great, but if you watched us all year it wasn’t like we were just blowing people away. I didn’t expect them to panic, I knew that they’d keep their heads about them.”

Needing someone to step up to stop the Salve freight train, it was again a freshman that stepped up, this time in the form of Kelly Coleman.

Subbed in during Harding’s free throws, the forward scored eight points in the next 2:30 as the Nor’easters made the final push towards perfection, holding off the Seahawks for the six-point victory.

“Obviously so of my shots weren’t falling but coach kept believing in me and the rest of my team,” said Coleman, who ended with a team-high 15 points. Once I knew we were all in it together I just settled down. I put it in the basket, but if it wasn’t for their assists and their rebounding I wouldn’t have been able to do that.”

In addition to Coleman three other Nor’easter freshman also hit double-figures, as Sadie DiPierro and Vose both added 13 and point guard Meghan Gribbin 10.

But as much as the day was about the freshman, it was also about the seniors, led by CCC Player of the Year Beth Suggs, who scored 11 points and grabbed 14 big rebounds. The UNE senior class started off their careers with a CCC title back in 2010, and got another their last time playing in Biddeford.

“Winning it as a senior is fantastic,” Suggs said. “I had all the belief in the world in my team and my coach to bring us back here. Won it as a freshman, and starting here and ending here is completely perfect and completely fine with me.

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