ORONO – Coach Cindy Blodgett saw Friday night how her team would respond when faced with a sizeable second-half deficit.

Now, she hopes the University of Maine women will play with the same kind of desire and intensity for the full 40 minutes.

Freshman Emily Rousseau of Biddeford helped spearhead a furious comeback with her 3-point shooting, but Harvard held on down the stretch for an 82-78 basketball victory in the first round of the Dead River Co. Classic at Alfond Arena.

“I loved their toughness. I thought they worked hard,” Harvard coach Kathy Delaney-Smith said of the Bears. “I thought we were a deeper team.”

The 1-3 Black Bears move into today’s 3:30 p.m. consolation game against 1-1 Quinnipiac, while the 2-2 Crimson face 2-1 Hofstra in the 6 p.m. title contest. In Friday’s opener, Hofstra edged Quinnipiac 54-51.

UMaine trailed by 17 with 9:55 remaining, but battled back within a point with 1:10 to play, delighting a crowd of 2,105.

However, the Crimson survived the rally, and significant foul trouble, while using their superior depth to outlast UMaine.

“I know that they’re going to fight and that’s a really key ingredient for the direction that we’re headed,” Blodgett said. “I think they understand that if they had fought like that throughout the game, we have a chance of making that a little different ending.”

Junior forward Colleen Kilmurray scored a career-high 20 points and grabbed six rebounds to lead UMaine, while Rousseau finished with a career-best 18 points behind 4-for-7 shooting from beyond the 3-point arc.

“Emily is a great shooter, she understands the game well,” Blodgett said. “For her, it’s learning to be aggressive every single minute that she’s out there.”

Brittany Boser contributed 10 points and 13 rebounds for UMaine, and Kris Younan provided 12 points, five rebounds, four assists and three steals.

Lindsay Hallion connected for 20 points to pace Harvard, which shot 57 percent from the field overall and 62 percent in the second half (16-for-26). Niki Finelli tossed in 19 points.

Freshman Emma Markley scored nine points, all in the second half, and grabbed five boards in a key effort. Emily Tay posted eight points and 12 assists, while Augusta’s Katie Rollins added nine points.

“We definitely want to learn the hard way,” Blodgett said of UMaine’s man-to-man defense. “They’re thinking about it. They understand it. Now it’s just putting it together and doing it.”

UMaine appeared headed for a lopsided defeat but refused to go quietly.

Kristin Baker of Bingham ignited the Bears’ last-ditch surge with a pump shot from the lane with 6:22 to play. Two Boser free throws cut the deficit to 75-65 before the poised Hallion sandwiched a 13-footer from the lane and a 10-foot jumper around a Rousseau 3-pointer.

Still down 11, Boser scored from down low, then Rousseau drained back-to-back 3-pointers 50 seconds apart, the second from 23 feet, to cut the deficit to 79-76 with 3:03 to play.

“We just got into a flow and I got a couple good looks and I was able to hit them,” said Rousseau, whose three 3-pointers in a span of 2:14 energized the crowd.

“It was really exciting. It’s kind of what you hope for, what you imagine,” she said.

The Bears got within 79-78 on Boser’s baseline layup off a Rousseau feed with 1:10 to play, but Hallion’s clutch, 10-foot jumper with 54 seconds left pushed the Harvard lead back to three.

“You can’t appreciate [Hallion] if you just stop and watch for a few minutes,” Blodgett said. “You have to watch her, how she controls the tempo, her shot selection. She was 9-for-10 tonight.”

Kilmurray and Rousseau missed back-to-back 3-pointers on UMaine’s ensuing possession, with Younan grabbing two offensive rebounds in the sequence. However, Rousseau’s 3-point try with 12 seconds left missed and Markley grabbed the rebound and made one free throw to ice the contest.

“Coach told us not to look at the scoreboard and just keep fighting hard and chipping away, and I think we really did that,” Kilmurray said. “We got on a good run, but we got on it a little too late.”

CRIMSON 82, BLACK BEARS 78

Harvard (2-2) Maine (1-3)

Player G AG F AF TP Player G AG AF TP

Tindal 0 4 2 2 2 Boser 3 7 10

Rollins 4 5 1 6 9 Rousseau 5 18

Finelli 7 10 2 2 19 Kilmurray 7 12 6 8 20

Tay 2 6 4 4 8 Baker 2 14 0 5

Hallion 9 10 2 2 20 Ross 1 5 6

Knox 2 2 0 0 4 Younan 3 4 4 12

Budischak 1 2 0 1 2 Bowen 0 3 0

Matera 2 6 0 0 6 Vaikute 2 5 7

Whealer 0 2 0 0 0 Bratishko 0 0

Markley 4 6 1 2 9

Moretzshn 0 1 3 4 3

Totals 31 54 15 23 82 Totals 23 58 24 31 78

Harvard 40 82

Maine 36 78

3-pt. goals – Harvard (5-12): Tindal 0-3, Finelli 3-3, Matera 2-5, Whealer 0-1; Maine (8-21): Rousseau 4-7, Kilmurray 0-2, Baker 1-7, Ross 1-2, Younan 2-2, Bowen 0-1

Attendance: 2,105