{"id":523732,"date":"2026-03-07T02:15:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T02:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/523732\/"},"modified":"2026-03-07T02:15:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T02:15:08","slug":"usm-womens-basketball-advances-in-ncaa-diii-tournament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/523732\/","title":{"rendered":"USM women\u2019s basketball advances in NCAA DIII tournament"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"\"\/<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\tUniversity of Southern Maine players celebrate during their game against Johnson & Wales in the first round of the NCAA Division III women\u2019s basketball tournament on Friday in Brunswick. (Brianna Soukup\/Staff Photographer)<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\tView 9 photos<\/p>\n

BRUNSWICK \u2014 Of course, the University of Southern Maine women\u2019s basketball team was nervous ahead of its NCAA Division III tournament game Friday.<\/p>\n

Jaycie Christopher and Dakota Shipley had three pregame discussions to convince themselves otherwise, but the jitters still made an appearance at the start of a first-round matchup against Johnson & Wales.<\/p>\n

Any lingering nerves were gone after the first quarter. The Huskies used a 17-4 run to take the lead and went on to a 62-46 win at Bowdoin College\u2019s Morrell Gymnasium.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of times, we rely on our defense to give us some energy, and so today, we weren\u2019t making shots for big stretches of the game, but we could rely on our defense and our rebounding to keep us in it,\u201d Christopher said. \u201c(We were) just trusting that, and trusting that shots are going to fall eventually.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Christopher led the balanced USM scoring attack with 16 points, seven rebounds and four assists. Lucy Wiles (three steals) and Avah Ingalls (four assists) each contributed 11 points, while Izzy Morelli came off the bench and dropped in 10.<\/p>\n

USM (26-2) will play Bowdoin or Emmanuel in the second round at 7:45 p.m. Saturday.<\/p>\n

Tahlia Pena (14 points off the bench), Brianne Foley (13 points, five steals), Mikayla Caruso (12 points, 10 rebounds) paced Johnson & Wales (23-5).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Johnson & Wales sophomore forward Grace Jaffray, the nation\u2019s second leading scorer entering the game (23.7 ppg), was held scoreless. Christopher, the Little East Conference Player of the Year, was her primary defender.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest thing for me is I trust my teammates,\u201d Christopher said. \u201cI know that I can apply pressure and really extend out, and I know that if she gets by, they have my back.\u201d<\/p>\n

USM led 34-18 at halftime and 45-37 entering the fourth. JWU used a 13-0 run in the third quarter to cut its deficit to 40-35, but the Wildcats would not get any closer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Shipley (eight points, 15 rebounds, three blocks) and Ingalls both sat for stretches in foul trouble, which gave Morelli a chance to contribute.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe gave us a huge boost in the first half and in the second half,\u201d USM coach David Chadbourne said. \u201cAnd she\u2019s just a freshman. She\u2019s got a bright future ahead, but she was key for us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"University of Southern Maine players celebrate during their game against Johnson & Wales in the first round of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":523733,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-523732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523732\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/523733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}