Jan. 26, 2008

Box Score

NEWARK, NJ - The NJIT women's basketball team won for the third time in its last six starts, holding off a late rally by visiting Chicago State for a 66-57 win by the Highlanders Saturday afternoon in the Prudential Center in downtown Newark.

The Highlanders, who have five wins overall, got 15 points from freshman guard Jessica Gerald and 13 from junior guard Jackie McCaffrey.

Freshman Ivana Seric collected nine rebounds and sophomore captain Katie Piekielski grabbed a personal season-best eight rebounds to lead NJIT, which had a 43-33 advantage on the boards over the visiting Cougars. Seric's nine rebounds were the most in her six-game college career. Her career-best three steals on Saturday were game-high.

The only double-figure scorer for Chicago State was sophomore Alyssa Waldon, who finished with 15 points on 5-for-20 shooting from the floor. Waldon was just about half of Chicago State's three-point offense, scoring half of the Cougars' six made three-pointers and launching 14 of their 29 attempts from long range.

Alyssa's sister, Courtney, a freshman, pulled down a game-high 10 rebounds for the visitors.

NJIT took control of the game with a 18-0 run from the last 5:21 of the first half through the first 2:02 of the second half. But Chicago State staged a 17-0 run of its own between the 5:02 and 1:15 marks of the second half to add unexpended tension to the finish.

Leading by 13 points at halftime, NJIT led by 23 as late as midway through the second half, going up 51-28 on Piekielski's jump shot with 10:23 left.

The Highlanders led by 22 heading into the eight-minute media timeout and NJIT's lead was 21, 60-39, when Kehinde Oyelola connected on a jumper at 5:18.

But Chicago State rallied for 17 unanswered points--seven by Alyssa Waldon--closing to within four points of the lead, 60-56, with 1:47 left after Jasmin Dixon's layup.

Having taken Chicago State's best blow, the Highlanders collectively dusted themselves off and closed out the win with a 6-1 finish over the last 1:15.

McCaffrey's layup broke the visitors' 17-0 run and then Jill Dickinson and Gerald both converted one-and-one opportunities in the last 32 seconds to put the game on ice for NJIT.

Most of the first half was close, with neither team leading by more than four points until the Highlanders went on a 12-0 run that expanded a one-point advantage with 5:21 remaining in the half to 13 points, 31-18, at the break. Seric scored four, Dickinson three and freshman point guard Adriana Johnson three and Gerald's layup with five seconds on the clock capped the NJIT outburst.

Gerald's nine points led all scorers at halftime, while McCaffrey and Dickinson checked in with seven and six points, respectively. Sarah Black had six points to pace the Cougars.

NJIT's five wins this season under first-year coach Margaret McKeon surpass the team's total of four wins in 2006-07, when it played its first season of Division I competition.

The Highlanders have eight regular season games remaining, plus the season-ending Division I Independent Tournament, hosted by Texas-Pan American from March 6 to 8.

Next up is a home game Monday at 7 pm against Texas-Pan American on the NJIT campus in the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center.