ORONO — The University of Maine women’s basketball team survived a poor-shooting game to win its America East quarterfinal game last Friday. On Monday night, against Binghamton in the semifinals, the Black Bears couldn’t find the shooting touch for three quarters.

In the fourth, though, everything clicked, and top-seeded Maine pulled ahead and away for a 64-58 win in front of 1,281 fans at the Pit. It was just the second time all season Maine rallied to win after a halftime deficit. The other time was when the Black Bears were down 10 at the half at Binghamton Jan. 27.

“I’m so proud of our team. I told them in the locker room, we could’ve mailed it in,” Maine Coach Amy Vachon said. “We could’ve said, we’re not going to do this.”

Maine, now 23-9, will host defending league champion Vermont in the America East championship game in Orono at 5 p.m. Friday. The winner gets the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.

The Black Bears shot just 30.9% and survived a quarterfinal scare Friday, eking out a win over No. 8 UMass Lowell. Against fifth-seeded Binghamton, Maine shot 33.3% (16 for 48) through the first three quarters. Binghamton led by as many as 10 points in the third quarter, and led 45-40 entering the fourth. The Bearcats shot a blistering 81.8% from the floor in the third quarter, making 9 of 11 shots and attacking the basket for easy layups.

“That’s what they like to do. They drive across the paint, and we weren’t locked in as much as we should’ve been,” Vachon said. “We wanted to make them uncomfortable. In the third quarter, they weren’t uncomfortable. They could do whatever they wanted to do.”

Down 51-43 with 7:30 to play, Maine went on a 12-0 run to take the lead. Anne Simon’s 3-pointer tied the game 51-51 with 5:29 to play, and back-to-back layups by Adrianna Smith gave the Black Bears a 55-51 lead with 3:41 to go, and the lead for good.

“I think from there, we were like OK, we’ve got this. This is our gym. We’re not going to lose,” said Simon, the America East Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year. “Just being able to have one more game here, it means a lot to me.”

Maine made 8 of 15 shots in the fourth, including a pair of 3-pointers by Olivia Rockwood (10 points). Simon, who scored 25 points, sank three free throws in the final 7.5 seconds to clinch the win. Simon and Smith (26 points) accounted for 51 of Maine’s 64 points.

Even with the bulk of the offense coming from Maine’s two all-conference first-team players, Vachon said the comeback and win was a total team effort, pointing to Rockwood’s fourth-quarter shooting and Anna Kahelin’s defensive effort off the bench.

“We’ve been in this position before. … Yeah, we weren’t making shots, but we all know Liv (Rockwood is) not going to keep shooting 3s and miss them. Anne’s not going to keep missing them. We have that confidence,” Smith said.

While the Black Bears got hot offensively, defensively they forced eight Bearcat turnovers in the fourth quarter, and scored 31 points off turnovers for the game.

“We were careless with the basketball, and the other thing was, we gave them too many second-chance opportunities,” said Binghamton Coach Bethann Shapiro Ord. “You can’t let a team like Maine have a second-chance opportunity. You know if they’re not making that first one, they’re making the second one.”

Maine led 15-13 after one quarter, taking advantage of seven Bearcats turnovers for 13 points. After shooting 7 for 15 in the first quarter, the Black Bears went cold in the second making just 2 of 17 shots and scoring just four points and going scoreless over the final six minutes of the half. Maine was just 1 of 11 from 3-point range in the first half, and Binghamton scored the final six points of the first half to take a 23-19 lead into the break.

Jadyn Weltz led Binghamton (14-17) with 25 points.

“In the fourth quarter, they just started getting energy from the crowd. We just didn’t respond,” Weltz said.

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