Box Score


NEWARK, NJ—NJIT poured in 51 second-half points, 33 of which came on 3-point baskets, but it wasn't enough to offset a fatally slow start and the Highlanders ran out of time against visiting Manhattan, 75-66, Sunday afternoon in non-conference women's college basketball in the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center.
 
The Jaspers, who won 24 games last season, upped their 2011-12 record to 2-4, paced by sophomore Monica Roeder's game-high 19 points and senior Lindsey Loutsenhizer's double-double of 16 points and 14 rebounds. Junior Toni-Ann Lawrence and senior Schyanne Halfkenny chipped in 10 points apiece for Manhattan.
 
Loutsenhizer, an all-Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference third team honoree as a junior, added four steals to her double-double and junior guard Maggie Blair made three steals and a team-leading seven assists to go with her six points.
 
NJIT (3-2) had two double-figure scorers, each of whom got all their points in the second half after the Highlanders had struggled to 15 first-half points and trailed at the break, 36-15.
 
The top scorer for the Highlanders was freshman Sarah Olson, who scored her 16 points in just nine minutes of action in the second half. After going scoreless in 14 minutes' work in the first half, Olson shot 5-for-5 from the field in the second half, including 4-for-4 from distance, and she made both of her free throws.
 
Sunday's game was a breakthrough performance for freshman Denisa Domiterova, who filled the stat sheet with new career highs in points (12), rebounds (6), and assists (7).
 
Domiterova, who had seen a lot of her 3-point tries in early games go in-and-out and was 4-for-18 on threes coming in, shot 4-for-6 from beyond the arc in the second half against Manhattan after missing three 3-point tries in the opening half. She also had six assists and two steals in the second half.
 
Rayven Johnson, who struggled with her field goal tries (1-for-8), shot 6-for-8 at the foul line—all in the second half—and grabbed six rebounds to match Domiterova for the team lead in that category.
 
Sophomore Uju Nwankwo and freshman Nicole Maticka each blocked three shots for the Highlanders and Maticka scored eight points and grabbed four rebounds, all in the second half.
 
The Highlanders made 14 3-pointers, including 11 in the second half, with six different players connecting from downtown.
 
The 14 threes tied for the second-most in program history. Last season, on January 15, the Highlanders made a record 17 triples in a win over Houston Baptist and they hit 14 against Longwood on February 14, 2009.
 
Neither team did much scoring early, but Manhattan got going a lot faster than NJIT, which never got untracked in the first half.
 
The Highlanders did not score a point until the eighth minute of action on a jump shot by Johnson, but the Jaspers weren't lighting up the scoreboard, either, having scored just eight points of their own leading up to Johnson's bucket for NJIT with 12:57 left in the half.
 
However, Manhattan answered the lone NJIT score with six points in 84 seconds and the Jaspers spent the rest of the half expanding their lead and answering any threats the Highlanders posed.
 
In fact, NJIT made three first-half 3-pointers, but any potential momentum was short-lived, as Manhattan countered with baskets of its own, including a pair of threes, within 20 seconds on each ensuing possession.
 
When Loutsenhiser made a layup at the 5:34 mark, her team took a 26-7 lead and eventually went up by 23 on a fast-break layup by Nicole Isaacs that made it 36-13, before NJIT's Nwankwo scored a layup to reach the halftime score of 36-15.
 
In addition to the 21-point lead on the scoreboard, the Jaspers dominated the team rebounding totals at the half, 30-11. And all 10 players who appeared for Manhattan in the first half scored, led by Roeder, Loutsenhizer, and Halfkenny, all of whom netted five points. Nwankwo was tops for NJIT with four points.
 
NJIT got on the board with its first possession of the second half on a Domiterova trey, but just as it had in the first half Manhattan responded to the Highlander three 18 seconds later with a three, this time from Roeder.
 
Although the Highlanders were scoring some early in the second half, with nine points in the first five minutes, so was Manhattan, which piled on 14 points in the same span, stretching its lead to a game-high 26 points, 50-24 on Lawrence's layup with 15:06 left.
 
Manhattan still led by 25, 64-39, on Halfkenny's traditional 3-point play with 9:26 left, but NJIT dominated the rest of the way, outscoring the visitors, 27-11, over the final 9:14.
 
Olson, who checked into the second-half lineup for the first time with 10:15 left, assisted on a three for Domiterova 26 seconds later and hit a three of her own 9:14 left for the first three of her 16 points in NJIT's 27-11.
 
NJIT, which shot a dismal 6-for-31 from the field in the first half and didn't attempt a free throw in the opening 20 minutes, turned things around in the second half, making 11 of 20 3-point tries and hit eight of 10 free throws.
 
And it wasn't a case of Manhattan taking the proverbial foot off the accelerator, because the Jaspers extended their defense into the NJIT backcourt when leading by more than 20 points and all five of the Jasper starters played a minimum of 30 minutes.
 
But the hole proved too deep for the Highlanders, who finally trimmed the deficit to single digits, but not until less than a minute remained. The closest they got was seven, 73-66, on Maticka's layup with just three seconds left.
 
NJIT will face Bucknell in women's basketball for the first time on Saturday when it hosts the Bison in a 2 pm game in the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center.