Box score
NEWARK, NJ—Chris Flores scored a game-high 17 points, leading NJIT past visiting Marywood, 73-47, in men's basketball Saturday afternoon in the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center.
Marywood, which scored the game's first three points and would not trail until past the midpoint of the first half, led 15-9 on a three-pointer by senior captain Tyler Reinhard with 12:50 left in the first half.
NJIT finally took its first lead, 19-18, on an Isaiah Wilkerson layup with 9:31 remaining, but Reinhard answered a minute later with his fifth three-point basket in his first five tries to reclaim the lead for the Pacers.
Marywood later broke a 22-22 tie with a layup by Tim Mullen and then a pair of free throws by Jacques Robinson for a 26-22 lead with 6:12 left.
NJIT's Sammy Schickel made a three-pointer 32 seconds later and the scorer stayed at 26-25, Marywood, a while longer, before the Highlanders took off.
Flores put the Highlanders on top to stay, 27-26, on a layup with 2:54 left and then scored three straight points on free throws to trigger an 11-1 run the rest of the way to halftime (actually 14-1 going back to Schickel's three at the 5:40 mark).
Leading at the half, 36-27, paced by 13 first-half points for Flores, the Highlanders opened the second half with a trey from Flores and their lead fell below double-digits just once the rest of the way.
In all, they outscored Marywood in the second half, 37-20, and led by at least 21 points for the final 7:52. The biggest NJIT bulge was 31, at 71-40, following Schickel's layup with 4:50 remaining. The bucket by Schickel capped a 12-0 run for the Highlanders, who had used a 10-2 spurt to go up 56-36 with 9:49 remaining.
On defense, NJIT held Marywood to just nine points after Mullen's jump shot with 8:48 left. The Pacers got their next seven points on free throws until Kirk Fallon made a layup with 32 seconds left to end a drought of 8:16 between Marywood field goals.
NJIT is 3-10 on the season, while Marywood, the third of four non-Division I opponents on the Highlanders schedule, drops to 5-4.
In addition to the 17 points from Flores, who has reached double-figure scoring in five of the last six games, NJIT got 12 points from senior Jheryl Wilson and a season-high 12 from Schickel. Playing 22 minutes off the bench, Schickel also shared team rebounding honors at 6 rebounds with freshman big men Drew Onyebuchi and Kherel Silcott.
The top scorer for the visiting Pacers was Reinhard, with 15 points. The senior guard scored 15 of his team's first 21 points by making his first five three-point attempts, but did not score after his fifth trey with 8:29 on the clock in the first half. Senior forward John Foreman added 10 points for Marywood. Senior forward Lenny Martin of Marywood led all rebounders, with eight.
Next up for the Highlanders is the 2011 Great West Conference opener, when NJIT hosts Texas-Pan American at 5 pm on Wednesday in the Fleisher Athletic Center.
