ORONO – The University of Maine women’s basketball team is merely four days away from Friday’s season opener at Dartmouth.

Based on their performance during Saturday night’s exhibition game against the Nor’Easter Storm, coach Sharon Versyp believes the Black Bears have tons of work to do in order to be ready.

Julie Veilleux of Augusta and Heather Ernest of Temple posted double-doubles Saturday night, lifting UMaine to a 73-52 victory over the Nor’Easter Storm, a compilation of former New England College players, at Alfond Arena.

The Bears finally wore down their opponents in the last eight minutes, turning a three-point lead into a 21-point win. However, UMaine seemed to play without direction at times, Versyp said.

“I thought that we were really frantic and we didn’t perform well at all,” Versyp said. “It was really bad basketball on our part.”

UMaine committed 26 turnovers (the Storm made 13), with only Ernest staying out of that column on the score sheet.

“People were just playing in a panic mode, which I didn’t understand because they weren’t pressing us, they weren’t trapping us,” Versyp said.

Veilleux paced UMaine with 13 points and 10 rebounds, while Ernest contributed 11 points and a game-high 13 rebounds. Senior captain Ellen Geraghty and sophomore Missy Traversi scored 14 points each for the Bears, who outrebounded the Storm by a commanding 64-33 margin.

Abby Schrader added eight points, 10 rebounds and three steals.

“It’s about heart. It’s about executing what you’ve gone over for a month now,” Geraghty said. “Without a doubt in my mind our team has heart and we know how to execute and we didn’t bring those to the table tonight.”

Kim Cummings led Nor’Easter with a game-high 16 points and Danielle Chaisson contributed 15 points, seven rebounds and six assists. The Storm shot only 29 percent from the field in the contest.

UMaine led 49-46 with 9:38 remaining, but put together a 24-6 scoring surge to close out the game.

With the Bears ahead 51-46, Ernest converted a conventional three-point play and Geraghty made a layup off a Melissa Heon steal to push the lead to 56-46 with eight minutes remaining.

Nor’Easter twice cut the deficit to eight points, but Veilleux’s baseline layup ignited a game-ending 13-0 run that put it out of reach.

“I think that our team really needs to understand the concept of taking every game as if it is the last game of your life and playing every second on the court as if you were down 20,” Geraghty said. “I think we need to have that intensity the entire game.”

BLACK BEARS 73, STORM 52

Nor’Easter Storm Maine women

Player G AG F AF TP Player G AG AF TP

Rayside 4 10 0 1 8 Heon 1 6 2

Penny 2 12 0 0 6 Corbitt 2 5 4

Chaisson 7 13 0 0 15 Veilleux 5 11 2 2 13

Adamian 2 8 1 4 5 Peterson 0 3

Cummings 6 16 3 4 16 Schrader 2 8

Skoglund 0 10 0 0 0 Traversi 5 14

Madeira 1 6 0 0 2 Ernest 4 10 11

Hickman 1 2 0 2

Geraghty 6 9 14

Gay 0 2 0 0

Quacknbsh 1 2 2

Totals 22 75 4 9 52 Totals 27 65 14 19 73

Nor’Easter 26 52

Maine 38 73

3-pt. goals ? Nor’Easter (4-12): Penny 2-6, Chaisson 1-4, Cummings 1-2; Maine (5-16): Heon 0-2, Corbitt 0-1, Veilleux 1-3, Peterson 0-1, Traversi 2-3, Hickman 0-1, Geraghty 2-5

Attendance: 1,500 (est.)