NEWARK, NJ—NJIT seniors Kim Tullis and Nicole Maticka each scored 12 second-half points, pacing the Highlanders to a 59-48 women's basketball victory Sunday afternoon against visiting Chicago State in the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center.
 
Tullis and Maticka, neither of whom scored in the opening half, which ended with NJIT holding a slim 20-19 advantage, combined to split 24 second-half points in sharing game-high scoring honors. The 12 points were a season-high for Tullis.
 
The win for NJIT, which played at home for the first time since December 11, raised its season record to 7-10 with back-to-back wins, coupling Sunday's win over Chicago State with a 76-50 trouncing of Wofford in Spartanburg, SC, two days earlier.
 
In addition to Tullis and Maticka, fellow senior Martina Matejcikova gave the Highlanders a third double-figure scorer by notching 10 points, seven of which came in the low-scoring opening half.
 
Chicago State (2-11) got 11 points apiece from senior Tashuna Brown and junior Layne Murphy. They were the only double-figure scorers for the Cougars, but sophomore Konner Harris notched nine points, redshirt freshman Sarah Amalou scored eight and senior Paris Williams added seven.
 
However, while Williams' seven points were the fewest by a CSU starter, the rest of the team managed just two points combined and the bench scoring favored the Highlanders, 19-2, with Matejcikova accounting for 10 of the NJIT's 19 bench points. Sophomore Olivia Dudley matched her season-best five points (first done in the previous win at Wofford) and sophomore Camerin Spahn scored four to account for the rest of NJIT's 19 bench points.
 
The three NJIT starters besides Maticka and Tullis were not scoring factors, combining to shoot 4-for-19 from the field. However, Alyssa Albanese, who came in averaging 11.5 points per game, did other things to compensate for an off shooting day. The senior point guard dished off a game-high 5 assists and committed a lone turnover in 32 minutes of action.
 
Albanse raised her NJIT career Division I-record assists total to 307 and is tied for third on the overall career list with Kelly Crowe (Class of 2007), who played three seasons when NJIT was in Division II and one, her senior year, in Division I competition.
 
Albanese also had a pair of steals Sunday, as NJIT took the ball away from Chicago State 10 times. Matejcikova stole the ball three times and Maticka joined Albanese with two steals.
 
The final totals showed Chicago State with 23 turnovers to 13 for NJIT, which helped the Highlanders to a 13-6 advantage in points-off-turnovers.
The visiting Cougars had a slight 32-31 lead in total team rebounds, paced by 8 from Murphy, a 6-foot-2 junior. NJIT's rebounding was spread out, with Tullis topping the list at 5, while six different Highlanders had at least 3 rebounds.
 
Both teams had difficulty scoring points for much of the first half, although Chicago State led 8-2 when Amalou, a guard from Denmark drained a 3-pointer 5:31 into the contest.
 
Consecutive threes for Olivia Dudley and Matejcikova got the Highlanders back with a point, 8-7, and Albanese hit a 3-pointer of her own to tie the score later at 11-11 with 7:09 left in the half.
 
Despite going close to five minutes between the Amalou triple that made it 8-2 and a Murphy layup that accounted for points nine and 10 for the Cougars, Chicago State stayed either in the lead or tied until Matejcikova made a steal and layup and was fouled, setting up a traditional 3-point play that thrust NJIT into its first lead, 18-15, with 2:18 reamining in the first half.
 
Amalou answered for the Cougars with a layup and later put CSU back in the lead, 19-18, with two free throws at the 44-second mark of the half. But Spahn made a layup 15 seconds later to give NJIT the 20-19 edge it took into the locker room at halftime.
 
The Highlanders, who began the second half with possession, scored first on a jump shot by Maticka, assisted by Albanese. Maticka continued the early spurt, hitting a 3-pointer and then a jump shot, staking the home team to a 27-19 lead with 16:59 left on the game clock.
 
NJIT women's basketball has hung its hat on defense since Steve Lanpher took over as head coach for the 2012-13 season and the Highlanders established defensive control to take command in the second half against Chicago State.
 
Murphy finally got a point for the Cougars when she made the first of two free throws at 16:06, but it wasn't until Chanel Wilson-Stewart made a layup for CSU with 11:53 left that the visitors made more than a foul shot in the second half.
 
NJIT's Leah Horton answered the Wilson-Stewart basket 14 seconds later to put her team up 35-24 with 11:39 left.
 
Chicago State rallied and closed to within six three more times, the latest on a layup by Tashuna Brown that trimmed the NJIT lead to 49-43 with 3:56 left.
 
But a Maticka 3-pointer after an offensive rebound by Tullis and a pair of free throws by Albanese after a missed shot and foul by CSU pushed the home team's lead back to 11 points, 54-43, with 2:27 left and the NJIT led by at least eight the rest of the game.
The visit from Chicago State rekindled memories of the now-gone Great West Conference. Both NJIT and CSU were members of the Great West for its entire existence from 2009-10 through 2012-13 and the two teams tussled at least twice a year in GWC competition.
 
Chicago State pulled off a double-crown season in 2010-11, taking both the regular season and tournament titles in the GWC for the best season in the history of CSU women's basketball. The Cougars finished the season with a 24-11 won lost record under Coach Angela Jackson who continues at CSU in her 12th season.
 
Two years later, NJIT reached its own greatest height in women's basketball, capturing the program's only conference championship at any level (began in 1986-87 in NCAA Division III). Guided by Lanpher, then in his first season with NJIT, the Highlanders won the 2013 Great West Conference Tournament.
 
With the demise of the Great West, Chicago State has moved on to the Western Athletic Conference (WAC). Sunday's game was the 13th all-time between NJIT and Chicago State in women's basketball and it was the fifth victory for the Highlanders in the series.
 
"Great West Conference Throwback Week" continues on Wednesday with a visit from another former Great West program, Texas-Pan American. The Broncs, too, were part of the Great West for its entire existence and they are now in the WAC, as well.
 
NJIT leads the all-time UTPA series, 12-5, including a win in the last meeting in the semifinal of the 2013 GWC Tournament.
 
Wednesday's game between the Highlanders and Broncs has a special starting time of 11:30 am in the Fleisher Athletic Center, as NJIT women's basketball hosts its annual "Education Day" for young area students who will come in as guests to visit a college campus, some for the first time, and enjoy the game.