BRUNSWICK — Bowdoin grabbed the momentum early to cruise to a 91-59 win Tuesday night over previously unbeaten University of New England in a nonconference Division III college women’s basketball game at Morrell Gymnasium.

The lopsided win over the Nor’easters came on the heels of the Polar Bears’ 80-68 win over the weekend against highly regarded University of Saint Thomas in the Skidmore Invitational.

“They look very impressive on film, but they look even better in person,” said UNE Coach Anthony Ewing. “They play really fast. They’ve got kids who go to the basket, kids that can shoot. They ‘D’ up, and they’re well coached. There’s not a lot of weaknesses there. You’ve got to kind of hope they don’t shoot real well to be in a game with them.”

The Polar Bears (3-0) shot the ball extremely well, making 46.9 percent of their 3-pointers (12 of 26) and 44.9 percent of their shots overall (35 of 78).

“There’s no one that we can say we can drop off her (and) we don’t have to guard her,” Ewing said, “and there is no one who can’t shoot the 3(-point shot) very well.”

The Polar Bears’ Taylor Choate, a junior guard, led all scorers with 22 points, all but six coming in the second half. Kate Kerrigan followed with 18 points. Laure Petit had 14 points.

Olivia Shaw, a senior forward from Saco, led UNE (3-1) with 17 points.

Sam MacDonald followed with 15 points. Ashley Coneys added 11 points.

Bowdoin took command early, stringing together a 21-0 run that started late in the first quarter and extended nearly five minutes into the second quarter. It ended with the Polar Bears holding a 38-15 lead. Buoyed by a 53 percent shooting percentage from 3-point range (8 of 15), they carried a 50-27 lead into the second half.

“The first home game is always fun and exciting,” said Kerrigan, a senior guard from Wellesley, Massachusetts, who scored 13 points during the first half to help propel the Polar Bears into their early 23-point lead. “We had a little bit of those nerves and it took us a little time to settle down, but once we did we rolled and we didn’t really stop rolling.”

“They’re a team that seizes momentum really well (and) they do a good job of holding on to it,” Ewing said. “We called a timeout to try to stem it, but they have such good enthusiasm, and it’s sort of contagious.”

Despite the accolades from Ewing, Bowdoin Coach Adrienne Shibles saw room for improvement.

“Our decision-making sometimes is a little sloppy,” she said. “I think we could look inside more. We’ve got some weapons inside, and we don’t use them enough.

“We’ve got some good people who can really score the ball inside, and I think if we have a little bit more balance inside-out that’s going to be good.”

“Tonight on the defensive end we let up way more points than we should have,” Kerrigan said. “We could have had some better box outs.”

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