SALEM, Va. — Maddie Hasson scored 25 points, Abby Kelly added 21 and Bowdoin advanced to the NCAA Division III women’s basketball championship game for the second straight year with a 71-60 victory Friday over St. Thomas of Minnesota.
Bowdoin (31-1) will play Thomas More (31-0) or Scranton (29-2) at 7:30 p.m. Saturday. It will be the third appearance in the NCAA final for Bowdoin, which is seeking its first national championship.
Bowdoin led for most of the game and was ahead 49-38 late in the third quarter, but St. Thomas (30-2) went on a 16-0 run to grab a 54-49 lead with 7:21 remaining.
A layup by Hasson with 6:03 left cut Bowdoin’s deficit to 56-53, and she followed with a three-point play that tied the game. On the ensuing possession, a steal by Hasson led to a three-point play by Moira Train that put Bowdoin ahead for good.
Only four players scored for the Polar Bears. Taylor Choate finished with 14 points, and Train, a freshman from Cumberland, matched her career high with 11.
Hasson, a 5-foot-11 junior from South Portland, scored 12 points in the second quarter as Bowdoin opened a 33-25 halftime lead after trailing 11-10 at the end of the first quarter.
Neither team led by more than four points until midway through the second, when a 3-pointer by Train started an 11-2 run that made it 31-20. Hasson got Bowdoin’s next six points, and Choate capped the surge with a jumper.
Two free throws by Choate put the Polar Bears up 49-38 with 2:17 remaining in the third quarter, but Bowdoin was then held scoreless for more than five minutes. St. Thomas closed 49-45 by the end of the quarter, then took the lead early in the fourth on back-to-back baskets by Hannah Spaulding, who led the Tommies with 17 points.
St. Thomas, though, didn’t make a field goal in the final six minutes, after a layup by Kaia Porter put the Tommies up 56-51.
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