Sawyer powers UM-Farmington past Bengals Beavers win 10th game of season

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FORT KENT – Jocelyn Sawyer scored 18 points to help lead the University of Maine-Farmington Beavers to a 75-45 women’s basketball win over the UMaine-Fort Kent Bengals Friday.

Sarah Woodcock, Rebecca Roak, and Julie Normand scored 14 points apiece for the 10-12 Beavers.

Megan Foreman led 2-17 UM-Fort Kent with 13 points.

Utes’ dedicated on ‘D’

Winning at Tennessee or Connecticut is hard. So is beating Notre Dame and stopping Southwest Missouri State’s Jackie Stiles.

But the hardest thing in women’s basketball right now might be scoring on Utah. The 16th-ranked Utes are dedicated to defense.

Utah leads the nation in scoring defense, giving up only 49.6 points a game. Opponents are shooting just 33.3 percent against the Utes, who have held nine teams to 45 points or fewer. They held Air Force to 29 and Wyoming to 36.

“It’s easy for us to play defense,” forward Lauren Beckman said. “We focus on it every day in practice. Our coaches put so much effort into scouting the other team that we’re able to anticipate and read well.”

Utah doesn’t play the full-court, in-your-face defense that forces turnovers and leads to quick scores. Instead, the Utes concentrate on defending the basket and keeping opponents out of their comfort zone with a tireless man-to-man.

“It’s a very basic philosophy,” Utah coach Elaine Elliott said. “We’re just trying to play percentages and get them to take shots that aren’t their best shots. Usually if you do that, they’re not as effective.”

Just as a team relies on a hot shooter to carry the offense, Utah relies on 6-foot senior Amy Ewert to lead the defense. Ewert is quick enough to stay with a point guard and strong enough to handle a power forward.

“It makes all the difference in the world,” Elliott said. “If you have somebody who can do a good job one-on-one, you can make a lot of other decisions around that.”

Utah complements its tough defense with a patient, motion offense, often taking 25 seconds or more to shoot. That can be as frustrating as the Utes’ defense.

“They’re disciplined at the offensive end, they grind you down,” Colorado State coach Tom Collen said. “When you get to the other end of the floor, you don’t have any legs left because you’ve been trying to guard them. It’s a tough combination.”

Also successful. After beating Wyoming on Thursday night, Utah was 21-2.

All in the family

Freshman guard Rometra Craig is one of the most athletic players at No. 4 Duke and it’s no wonder.

Check out the family.

Her father is Roger Craig, who helped the San Francisco 49ers win three Super Bowl championships and was the first running back to rack up 1,000 yards rushing and 1,000 receiving in the same season.

But Rometra Craig says her athletic ability comes from her mother, Vernessia.

“My mom was in a lot of sports in high school,” said Craig, who also ran track in high school and was a national Tae Kwon Do champion. “She’s just very athletic, her whole family. They’re all strong and athletic, so my versatility definitely comes from her.”

Her drive, however, comes from her father. Roger Craig always was one of the 49ers’ best-conditioned players, and Rometra used to accompany him during his training runs on a hill near their Bay area home.

“I’d seriously finish like 30 minutes after him,” said Craig, who’s averaging 7.3 points and 2.2 rebounds. “But it was just the fact that I could run the whole way.

“After I was done, he’d just give me a hug and say good job because none of my brothers and sisters could finish the hill. It was just a little bond we had.”

Benched by a brace

Paula Moore of Syracuse was benched for the game when the Orangewomen played at Seton Hall, though not because she did anything wrong. The problem: she didn’t have a brace to stand on.

Moore was talking on a telephone in the hotel lobby before leaving for the game when a member of the cleaning staff picked up the brace and carried it away. It wasn’t until the bus was on its way to the game, in the midst of heavy traffic, that Moore realized the brace was gone.

But if the bus had turned around then and battled its way through the congestion to the hotel, the team would have been late for the game. Once at the gym, coach Marianna Freeman sent administrative assistant Pam Bowden and the bus driver back to the hotel to fetch the brace.

But there was a problem. The day crew had left and the night crew didn’t know where the brace had been stashed. So Freeman held Moore out of the game. Moore tore an ACL in May 1999 and missed all last season.

“The strength of our team is the sum of our parts,” Freeman said. “I didn’t take the chance. We needed her in good shape for the rest of the year.”

The brace was found the next morning and Moore had another chance to play against Seton Hall on Saturday, this time at home.

Prep phenoms

Baylor coach Kim Mulkey-Robertson recently found herself in some select company.

Mulkey-Robertson was named one of the nation’s top 50 high school girl athletes of the 20th century. Student Sports and the Women’s Sports Foundation compiled the list in celebration of National Girls and Women in Sports Day earlier this month.