ORONO – It took the University of Maine women’s basketball team a long time to get its offense clicking Saturday night against Albany.

The way the Black Bears were playing defense, their first-half shooting struggles weren’t that much of a concern.

UMaine smothered Albany with its full-court pressure and half-court man-to-man, holding the Great Danes to 20 second-half points on its way to a 69-44 America East victory in front of 2,928 fans at Alfond Arena.

Kim Corbitt, Melissa Heon, Julie Veilleux, and Missy Traversi spearheaded a tireless defensive charge as coach Sharon Versyp’s Bears pushed their record to 17-5 overall, 12-0 in conference play.

UMaine has won 12 in a row and has racked up 28 consecutive AE regular-season victories dating back to 2001-02.

“I don’t think we’ve played full-court man, as well as we did tonight, for a while,” Versyp said. “… I think our pressure hurt them.”

The Bears limited the Great Danes (8-13, 5-7 AE) to 25 percent shooting by harassing Albany’s guards, then bottling up post standout Danielle Hutcheson (10 points, 11 rebounds) and contesting the Great Danes’ 3-point shooters (2-for-11).

“Our defense was really a key to us staying in the game the first half and a key to our success in general,” said junior point guard Corbitt.

“As the game went on, we kind of saw where they were trying to pass the ball and tried to get there first,” she added.

Heather Ernest of Temple, who missed Wednesday’s game because of an eye injury suffered Feb. 8 at Binghamton, paced the UMaine offense with 14 points. She also provided seven rebounds, three assists, and two steals.

Corbitt broke loose for all 12 of her points to spark the Bears’ 41-point, second-half offensive surge, while freshman Ashley Underwood of Benton (11 points) nailed three 3-pointers, helping UMaine generate some first-half momentum.

Abby Schrader contributed six points, five rebounds, and three assists to go with tough post defense, while Heon added eight points, three assists, and two steals.

Hutcheson was the lone double-figure scorer for Albany, which had won three straight. The visitors committed 17 turnovers to 11 for UMaine.

The Bears emerged with a 26-10 advantage on points from the paint and also tallied 19 points off Albany turnovers.

UMaine led by four points early in the second half when Corbitt went on an 8-0 scoring binge lasting 69 seconds. The speedy guard kicked off the run with a driving layup and foul shot, then buried a 3-pointer from the top of the key. Corbitt followed that up with a steal and layup, giving the Bears a 42-30 lead with 14:51 remaining.

“It was fun watching the Kimberly Corbitt show for those couple minutes,” Ernest said. “It’s awesome. It makes it really hard to stop Maine when you really don’t know who to shut down.”

Albany later used a 5-0 run to creep within nine, but Heon hit a 3-pointer to ignite a 21-5 flurry that put the game out of reach. The Bears held the Great Danes to one field goal over the last nine minutes of the contest.

“We just could not score,” said Albany coach Trina Patterson. “What is a credit to Maine is you can be in the game, a four-point game at halftime, and then [it] turns from 10 to 20 in a matter of two or three minutes… in the second half they just exploded.”

UMaine shot 53 percent in the second half (16-for-30).

Underwood came off the bench and made three 3-pointers in the last 8:14 of the first half to help the Bears loosen up Albany’s 2-3 zone.

“Ashley was a big key for us today getting a little bit of a lift and giving a little cushion going into the halftime, because a lot of things weren’t going well,” Versyp said.

BLACK BEARS 69, GREAT DANES 44

Albany (8-13) Maine (17-5)

Player G AG F AF TP Player G AG AF TP

Ayers 2 8 2 2 7 Heon 3 13 8

Hutcheson 4 14 2 5 10 Ernest 6 8 14

Sweetland 0 7 5 6 5 Corbitt 3 3 12

Learn 2 8 0 0 4 Veilleux 2 5

Jones 0 7 2 2 2 Schrader 2 6

Schumacher 3 6 0 0 7 Traversi 3 7

Johnson 0 1 0 0 0 Underwood 4 11

James 1 1 3 4 5 Peterson 2 4

Clark 2 3 0 3 4 Hugstd-Vaa 1 2

Majors 0 0 0 0 0 Whittier 0 0

Quacknbsh 0 1 0

Totals 14 55 14 22 44 Totals 26 57 13 69

Albany 24 44

Maine 28 69

3-pt. goals ? Albany (2-11): Ayers 1-4, Sweetland 0-2, Schumacher 1-2, Clark 0-1, Jones 0-2; Maine (8-18): Heon 2-7, Ernest 0-1, Corbitt 1-1, Veilleux 1-3, Traversi 1-2, Underwood 3-4

Attendance: 2,928