NEWARK, NJ—Senior forward
Martina Matejcikova scored 18 points and grabbed 11 rebounds and senior guard
Alyssa Albanese added 15 points and a career-high 13 assists, leading the NJIT women's basketball team to a 78-35 victory over St. Joseph's of Brooklyn Friday night on Senior Night for the four graduating Highlander seniors at the Fleisher Athletic Center.
The Highlanders improved to 12-16 overall on the season with one game remaining on the road at UMass-Lowell Tuesday night.
Albanese, who tied the single game NJIT school record with 13 assists (record held by Jackie McCaffrey vs. Nyack on February 25, 2005), also set a new single season assist record with 122. The former record was held by Nicole Ballou in 2002-03 with 120 assists.
Albanese gave the Highlanders the lead for good at 13-10 with 10:38 remaining in the first half. The Highlanders never looked back after that point.
Albanese also had four steals to increase her Division I school record to 136.
NJIT led, 32-17, at the break, and then went on a 15-2 run to start the second half to put the game away. Matejcikova had a three-pointer to start the half and then scored on consecutive layups to push the lead to 45-19 with 15:44 remaining.
The Highlanders had four players reach double figures, including another player enjoying her final home game at the Fleisher Athletic Center, senior
Nicole Maticka. Maticka netted 11 points, collected six blocked shots (improving her all-time NJIT blocked shot total to 236), six rebounds and four steals. Sophomore guard
Alana Dudley added 10 points to aid the winning cause.
Senior forward
Kim Tullis, the fourth of the graduating seniors, had four rebounds and four assists in the winning cause.
Sophomore forward
Leah Horton added eight points and sophomore forward
Camerin Spahn had five points and six rebounds for the winners.
The Highlanders out-rebounded the Bears, 51-37, and collected an astounding 27 assists on 33 field goals.
Taylor Raccuglia scored 11 points and Samatha Retas added 10 in vain for St. Joseph's (17-11). The Bears will continue their season in the United States Collegiate Athletic Association national postseason tournament.
Recap courtesy James Hague
