AMHERST, Mass. — Amherst scored started the game on a 9-0 run and held Colby scoreless for the first 6 minutes, 10 seconds of the game to earn a 66-52 win in the semifinals of the New England Small College Athletic Conference women’s basketball tournament Saturday.

Top-ranked Amherst, which has won 45 straight games, improves to 26-0 and will play in the conference championship game today at noon. Colby is 19-7 and will need an at-large bid to make the NCAA Division III tournament for the third season. The pairings will be announced Monday at 2:30 p.m.

Jil Vaughan scored 19 points and grabbed nine rebounds for Colby. Cony High School graduate Rachael Mack added 11 points, 10 rebounds and five assists. Mack is now fifth on the all-time Colby scoring list with 1,241 points.

Marcia Voigt had 17 points, eight rebounds and three assists for Amherst.

Maine 45, Stony Brook 40: The Black Bears overcame a seven-point deficit and took the lead with a little more than a minute to play to beat the Seawolves in an America East game in Orono.

Courtney Anderson grabbed an offensive rebound and scored to give Maine a 41-40 lead late in the game.

Brittany Williams had 12 points, seven rebounds and three assists for Maine (7-22, 4-12 in the conference). Samantha Baranowski had nine points and nine rebounds, while Danielle Walczak added eight and eight rebounds.

Tamiel Murray had eight points and seven rebounds for Stony Brook (4-25, 1-15).

Women’s hockey

Middlebury 5, Colby 1: The Panthers scored four power-play goals on their way to a NESCAC quarterfinal win over the Mules in Middlebury, Vt.

The top-seeded Panthers improve to 19-3-3 and advance to the conference semifinals. Colby ends the season 6-17-2.

Caroline Chessare scored the lone goal for Colby with an assist from Meredith Reynolds. Brianne Wheeler had 35 saves.

Providence 6, Maine 0: Brittany Ott made 24 saves but the Black Bears season ended with a loss to the Friars in the Hockey East quarterfinals.

Maine ends the season 17-11-6 overall and 11-8-2 in the conference. Providence improves to 15-16-4, 11-8-2.

College skiing

STOWE, Vt. — Jake Barton, Levin Zars and Pace DeFrancis all finished in the top 20 for the Colby men’s Nordic team in the 20K classic mass start at the Eastern Championships/Middlebury College Carnival.

Barton finished seventh with a time of 1 hour, 20 minutes, 20.2 seconds. Zars was 14th at 1:20.55.3 and DeFrancis 18th at 1:21.11.3.

For the Colby women, Olga Golovkina was 14th in the 15K with a time of 1:07.40.

USCSSA Eastern Regionals: For UMF, Alex Rose and Sam Ricker both finished in the top five in the giant slalom to lift UMF into second place.

Castleton leads the competition with eight points, followed by UMF (13) and Babston (17).

Track and field

NEICAAA New England Championships: Winslow High School graduate Christina Massey finished sixth in the long jump with a leap of 17-feet, 43⁄4-inches for the University of Southern Maine women’s track and field team on Friday in Boston.

Also for USM, Cony High School graduate Bethany Dumas finished 13th in the pole vault with a leap of 11-03⁄4.

For Colby College, Luke Doherty Munro earned all-New England status, finishing eighth in the 1,000 with a  time of 2:31.08. Also for the Mules, Matt White, Kevin Clarke, Doherty Munro and Dylan Nisky finished 10th in the 3,200 relay with a time of 7:50.83. The distance medley team of Waterville graduate Jeff Hale, Will Supple, Clarke and Ben Leser finished in 10:23.23, good for 15th.

For the Colby women, Anna Hicks finished sixth in the 60-meter dash on Saturday. Hicks finished with a time of 7.82 seconds in the championships finals.

Also for Colby, Brittany Reardon was 10th in the 60 hurdles, and 14th in the pole vault.