ORONO – Basketball fans from Down East have been waiting for their Sandi Carver to show up on the Alfond Arena court for three years.

The Carver with the classic Jonesport-Beals bloodlines – daughter of Dwight, a four-time state champ – a girl who torched opposing Class D teams en route to a state championship of her own.

She was the most athletic girl on the court. The go-to player. The franchise. The one who, when things aren’t going well, meets anxious eyes with a hard glare and makes the play.

Help us, the eyes used to say. Show us. Take us with you.

That Sandi Carver, now a University of Maine junior, showed up on Saturday.

She’s quick to point out that on the Black Bears, there is only one franchise. As the entire state knows, that’s Cindy Blodgett.

But when Blodgett picked up her third foul and left the game with 8:37 to go in the first half, two things happened in rapid succession.

First, the Bears fell behind Vermont 32-26 in the battle for the America East championship.

Second, Carver – who had victimized the Catamounts with exactly five points in two previous games this season – went nuts.

And the junior captain’s three-minute flurry is just as responsible for the Black Bears’ third straight trip to the NCAA tournament as Blodgett’s 37 points, or Jamie Cassidy and Stacey Porrini’s combined 22.

This was a genuine moment. An opportunity missed, and one taken. For three minutes, the 5-foot-9 Carver was back on Beals Island, taking the rock to the hole in someone’s dooryard. Maybe it was Billy Look in the way. Maybe it was one sister or another. Didn’t matter.

Hunched over in her unique style, muscular shoulders clenched, target in sight, Carver was the franchise again.

“I just knew they were coming to me,” Carver said. “I was the one who needed to get it done and needed to lift the team up.”

Three times she drove the right baseline, and once she headed up the gut. With 6:37 to go before halftime, she pulled up and nailed a five-footer, absorbed a hack by Vermont’s Alex Lawson, and nailed the foul shot. It was 32-29 and the Bears were breathing.

On the next possession, she gathered in a Cassidy blocked shot, raced coast-to-coast, and made the layup while being fouled by Holly Harris. Another free throw made it 32-all with 6:05 to go, and the Bears were panting.

Next time down, another baseline drive found the net. 34-32. Blodgett whooped and hollered, enjoying the scene from the bench.

“I guess I probably shouldn’t say this, but I was really enjoying it from a spectator’s point of view,” Blodgett said. “I was very excited. I was like, `Go!’

“I was cheering, and I really enjoyed cheering at the time.”

A pause, and Blodgett put on a rural Maine dialect, grin planted on her face.

“Because I knew I weren’t going back in for a while.”

A little later, after two Vermont hoops, Carver knifed to the hoop for her third conventional three-point play at the 3:37 mark. The Bears led by one when Blodgett came back on the ensuing dead ball. The moment was over.

Carver would finish with 15 points, a spot on the all-tournament team, and another league title. The individual award was a reflection of the importance of her eruption – she only scored eight points in the rest of the tourney, but had 11 during the magic three minutes.

“We knew we had an opportunity,” UVM’s Lawson said. “We knew that that would be our chance to get ahead by 10. And once we got ahead by 10, we would hopefully maintain it.”

Carver said coach Joanne Palombo-McCallie has begged, ordered, and pleaded for her to drive to the hoop with the ball. The ministrations have even taken the form of Palombo asking her to please, please, please pick up an offensive foul.

The Vermont players didn’t think it would happen.

“We had a special thing to get help on the weak side on Blodgett,” Kate Cronin said. “We didn’t expect Carver to come out [and play like she did].”

Carver said Palombo convinced her long ago that driving to the hoop would work. But doing so has been tough.

“She’s been pounding it into my head, and it’s been frustrating that I’m not getting it done,” Carver said.

The academic leader, a solid captain, and starter of 28 games, Carver hasn’t vanished this year. Her production is up a little from last year in every catagory.

But while she said she has proud of what she’s done off the court, as a leader and a friend, on-court performance has been a concern.

“I’ve been working desperately hard to take that on the court, because I know I can,” she said. “I just hadn’t broken through. But tonight was the night.”