Baltimore, Md. - The UMBC women's basketball team (0-14, 0-4 AEC) was unable to recover from a 21-8 run in the remaining eight minutes of the first half as the New Hampshire Wildcats (7-7, 3-2 AEC) defeated the Retrievers, 65-54 in America East women's basketball action on Wednesday night at UMBC RAC Arena.  Maria Brown (Frederick, Md./Frederick) and Courtney Doughman (Ironton, Ohio/South Webster) led the Retrievers with 11 points respectively.

The Retrievers were slow out of the box as the Wildcats jumped ahead 7-3 before an 8-0 run by UMBC, which kept the Wildcats scoreless for nearly six minutes, put the Retrievers up 11-7 with 8:53 remaining in the first half.  At that point Whitney Edwards drained her only basket of the game with a trey from the baseline to spark a 21-8 run by the Wildcats to end the half and take a 29-19 lead into the break.

At the half Ebony Woods led the Wildcats with 12 points on 4-of-8 shooting while Doughman for the Retrievers came off the bench to tally eight points on 3-of-4 shooting from the field and 2-of-3 from three point range.  

The Wildcats lead grew to 16 in the second half before being cut back to single-digits when Brown knocked down a trey to close the gap to seven, 50-43, with 5:50 to play.  UMBC, however, could not get any closer as Wildcats took the 65-54 victory.

Both teams were even from the field as UMBC shot 42.3 percent (22-of-52) while the Wildcats shot 42.0 percent (21-of-50).  The difference turned out to be the Wildcats grabbing 13 offensive rebounds and converting at the line making 12-of-18 from the charity stripe with the majority coming in the remaining minutes of regulation.

Maren Matthias recorded a double-double with 13 rebounds and 11 points while Woods finished with a game-high 20 points.

The Retrievers return to RAC Arena on Saturday night when they play host to last year's America East regular season conference champion Maine at 7 p.m.