BRUNSWICK — Two weeks ago a visiting team cut down the basketball nets at Morrell Gymnasium when Tufts won the NESCAC title.

Sitting in their locker room at the half Saturday night, leading by just five points, the Bowdoin College’s women’s basketball players decided that wouldn’t happen again.

So the Polar Bears came out and dominated the second half, overwhelming Ithaca 87-61 to advance to the NCAA Division III women’s final four for a second consecutive year.

Seniors Taylor Choate and Abby Kelly combined for 27 points in the second half.

“We just cut down the nets in our last game at Morrell,” said Kelly. “I don’t think any other school can say their ending was the way ours was. It’s been incredible.”

The Polar Bears (30-1) will play St. Thomas of Minnesota (30-1) in the national semifinals Friday at the Cregger Center on the campus of Roanoke College in Salem, Virginia. Bowdoin lost in the national championship game a year ago. Ithaca, which eliminated St. Joseph’s College in the second round of the NCAA tournament, finished 25-6.

Choate finished with 21 points, 13 in the second half, and Kelly had 18, 14 in the final two quarters. Maddie Hasson of South Portland finished with a double-double, scoring 16 points with 11 rebounds.

That balance was important – all five Bowdoin starters scored in double figures – but the thought of playing just 20 more minutes on their home court drove the Polar Bears to play their best in the second half. And they did, outscoring the Bombers 51-30.

“We wanted to go out with a bang,” said Choate. “And it was really special.”

Bowdoin trailed only once, at 5-3, then scored the next 11 points. But the gritty Bombers wouldn’t go away and pulled within 32-31 on a basket by Meghan Mazzella with 3:19 left in the second quarter. Ithaca had three chances to take the lead but missed two shots and also threw the ball away. Hannah Graham of Bowdoin hit a 3-pointer from the left corner to make it 36-31 at the half.

“It was huge to go in with that little bit of cushion,” said Bowdoin Coach Adrienne Shibles.

Then the Polar Bears took off. They opened the third quarter on a 10-2 run to lead 46-33 – Choate and Kelly each scoring five points –and Ithaca never recovered, getting no closer than nine points the rest of the way.

“Basketball is a game of ebb and flow,” said Ithaca Coach Dan Raymond. “Unfortunately we weren’t able to answer when they made their run.

“It’s obvious how good Bowdoin is and we just had a really difficult time stopping them. And that put a lot of pressure on us on the offensive end to match what they were doing on the offensive end … We just weren’t able to recover from that punch they threw early.”

Bowdoin dominated the inside, outrebounding Ithaca 49-21 – 17-3 on the offensive end – and outscoring the Bombers 42-22 inside. It didn’t help that Ithaca’s top inside players each got into foul trouble.

“We definitely talked about owning the paint,” said Shibles, noting that Ithaca was outrebounded in all its losses. “Getting their bigs in foul trouble certainly helped.”

And now Bowdoin is back on the big stage.

“Getting there last year and coming up just short, we knew we wanted to get back there,” said Choate. “And we’ve been working hard all season in practice … now we’re going and we’re happy about it.”

Mike Lowe can be contacted at 791-6422 or:

mlowe@pressherald.com

Twitter: MikeLowePPH

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