GORHAM — She didn’t like watching basketball games from her seat on the University of Southern Maine bench last season. Didn’t like it at all. Instead of sulking or walking away from the state’s most successful women’s basketball program, Courtney Cochran spoke up.

How do I get more playing time, Coach? Earn it, Gary Fifield told her. Work harder.

Cochran, a forward, flashed a smile at the memory shortly before she ran onto the court at Hill Gymnasium for Tuesday’s two-hour practice. After stumbling through the first two months of the 2010-11 season to a 6-6 record, the USM women ripped off an eight-game win streak, turned their season around and earned a second seed and a bye to the Little East Conference tournament.

USM will play Eastern Connecticut, which beat Keene State in a first-round tournament game Tuesday night.

The next game is Friday’s semifinals. Win and it’s on to the championship game and the automatic bid to the NCAA Division III tournament. Lose to Eastern Connecticut and the season will end. Fifield does not expect an at-large bid after a 16-9 season.

“We’re excited,” said Cochran. “I’ll be nervous, but I won’t be anxious.”

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This game with Eastern Connecticut and any that may follow pushed her through summer workouts in the weightroom at tiny Woodland High and on its basketball court. She was determined to transform her 6-foot-1 frame and become more than a player that averaged 3.4 points and 3.4 rebounds a game last season.

“I played on championship teams at Woodland. I want to do that again here.”

Cochran finished the regular season averaging 15.2 points a game and 11.3 rebounds. Fifteen times she scored and rebounded in double figures. Her highlight game? Maybe her 21-point, 17-rebound performance against Western Connecticut in a 74-53 win at home on Jan. 22. Cochran was matched against Melissa Teel, the 6-foot-2 senior who was the LEC Player of the Year last season.

Cochran was a different player when she reported to practice this fall. Stronger and more fit. She scored more, which fed her confidence, which spurred her scoring and rebounding even more. Her peformance mirrored the team’s performance.

USM had graduated key players and lost Curran Leighton, the conference’s best freshman, to a Division II scholarship. Senior guards Kaylie DeMillo and Nicole Garland provided leadership, but through November and December, too many players were adjusting to new roles. On Jan. 5, USM beat Husson, 67-62, which evened the record at 6-6.

“We felt it was a new year, a new start, a new team,” said Cochran. “We’re all sisters. We believed we would come together and start winning.”

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No, said Cochran, she can’t recall any speeches made by the captains or anyone else on the team, including herself. It was understood. You came to the University of Southern Maine to play for Fifield and win. Don’t get down from the losses. Don’t panic. Fifield-coached teams had won at least 20 games for 22 seasons, which is his tenure at USM.

The weight of all that success might have buckled this team. “They know the tradition here. They understand it,” said Fifield. “We didn’t talk about it or put it out there that way. But I’m sure it was in the back of their minds.”

No one talks about getting two wins in the LEC tournament and two more in the NCAA playoffs just to reach 20. “One game at a time,” said Cochran, looking me in the eye. No getting around the cliche, she said. One more win earns them one more game. Let someone else add it up.

Cochran isn’t the first USM women’s basketball player from Woodland High, a Class D school in the small Washington County town of Baileyville, near the Canadian border. Ashley Marble, the Division III Player of the Year in 2007, is a Woodland graduate. Cochran and Marble are, in Cochran’s words, “distantly related.”

Maybe not so distant.

“I’m looking forward (to Friday’s semifinas game),” said Cochran. “I’ll be able to prove myself. I always wanted to make a difference.”

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She worked for it.

 

Staff Writer Steve Solloway can be contacted at 791-6412 or at:

ssolloway@pressherald.com

 


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