Box Score


NEWARK, NJ—Visiting Colgate built a 10-point halftime lead, let it slip away to fall behind briefly in the second half, and then recovered to pull away for a 54-44 non-conference women's basketball win over NJIT Sunday afternoon in the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center.
 
Freshman guard Mariah Jones scored 16 points to lead Colgate, which won its second straight after opening with losses in each of its first 10 games. Senior center Tricia Oakes gave the Raiders 11 points and 12 rebounds in 22 minutes off the bench. Freshman Kelly Reid added 10 points and senior Kelly Korkowski shared game rebounding honors with Oakes, grabbing 12 boards, as the visitors held a 46-37 team rebounding advantage.
 
NJIT, playing for the first time in a week, fell under the .500 for the first time this season, going to 4-5 after having lost its last three.
 
The only double-figure scorer for the Highlanders was sophomore Uju Nwankwo, who finished with 14 points and was the only player on the team to make more than 40 percent of her shots from the floor. She connected on 6-of-9, while the rest of the team was 11-for-52 for a combined total of 17-for-61 (27.9 percent).
 
NJIT, which scored at least 54 points in each of its first six games and topped 64 four times in building a 4-2 record to open the season, has scored 37, 50, and now 44, respectively, in its three-game slide.
 
Included in NJIT's cold shooting total on Sunday was 1-for-18 accuracy on 3-pointers for the Highlanders, whose only made three came on a Denisa Domiterova shot from the left corner with 7:05 remaining that came after Colgate had already extended its lead back to 10 points, 43-33.
 
Rayven Johnson pulled down a personal season-high 11 rebounds to pace NJIT on the boards. Freshman center Nicole Maticka totaled eight rebounds and three blocked shots, raising her program Division I-record season total to 31. Maticka was ranked seventh in the nation in the latest Division I blocked shots per game statistics.
 
Colgate's shooting was inconsistent, as well (35.6 percent; 21-for-59), but good enough to produce 11 more points from the field than NJIT could muster (46-35).
 
Both teams got a high number of offensive rebounds. Colgate recovered 19 of its own missed shots, while NJIT came away with 20 of the Raiders' misses. Oakes got six of her 12 rebounds on the offensive end to lead Colgate in that category.
 
While the Highlanders struggled to protect their defensive backboard, they collected 17 offensive rebounds of their own—nine by Johnson. As a result, the second-chance points were close, favoring Colgate, 14-10.

Three stretches of a bit more than four minutes each were crucial in swinging the fortunes from one team to the other, Unfortunately for NJIT, two of the momentous switches went Colgate's way.

Colgate led 18-17 after NJIT's Kimberly Dweck scored a basket with 4:22 left in the first half. However, the Raiders outscored the Highlanders, 10-1, the rest of the way to halftime for a 28-18 lead at the break.

The next swing went NJIT's way, as the Highlanders burst out of halftime with a 12-2 run in the first 4:32, completely erasing the 10-point halftime deficit.

The final big shift, which proved decisive, was an 11-0 Colgate spurt in a span of 4:17 that pushed the Raider lead right back to 10, 43-33, with 7:35 left.
 
Neither team scored in the game's opening two minutes, but Colgate used a three from Candice Green, who would play all 40 minutes, and then a layup by Korkowski with 17:09 left in the half for a 5-0 lead.
 
After NJIT coach Margaret McKeon subbed all five positions, the Highlanders got on the board with a driving layup for Sarah Olson with 15:45 left. Dweck hit a jumper and then Nwankwo took a pass from Melanie Griffin and gave the Highlanders their first lead of the day, 6-5, with 13:59 left in the half.
 
There would be three lead changes and three ties in the next 3:46, with the last tie at 12-12 on Griffin's jump shot midway through the half.
 
However, NJIT managed just six points from Griffin's bucket at the 10:13 mark until halftime, including one point, an Olson foul shot, in the last 4:22. In fact, it was the last 4:22 that were most crucial, as a Dweck field goal at that time trimmed the Highlanders' deficit to 18-17, only to have Colgate finish the half 10-1, with six points from Reid and four from Jones.
 
Jones had nine first-half points, followed by eight from Reid, as Colgate took a 28-18 first-half lead. Dweck had seven points for the Highlanders.
 
Having been outscored by 10, outrebounded 26-18, and been a step slow on too many free balls in the first half, NJIT came out with much higher energy to open the second half.
 
Trailing by 10 at the break, the Highlanders erased the whole deficit in the opening 4:32, drawing even on two Nwankwo free throws that made it 30-30 with 15:28 left in the game.
 
Colgate's Lauryn Kobiela, who scored seven second-half points, put her team back on top, 32-30, on a jump shot with 14:08 left, but NJIT's Griffin hit the second of two free throws and then Maticka canned both of her free throws to give the Highlanders what would be their only lead of the second half, 33-32, at 12:09.
 
Oakes, the 6-foot-4 senior who came in averaging 7.3 points per game, then scored four of her eight second-half points on back-to-back layups before she grabbed a defensive rebound that ended with a layup on the other end for Jones, as Colgate scored six points in 49 seconds to surge back on top, 38-33, with exactly 11 minutes left.
 
NJIT's Coach McKeon called a timeout after Jones' layup, but the Colgate run continued with an Oakes jumper and a three for Kobiela that pushed the Raider advantage back to 10, 43-33, with 7:35 left.
 
The net result was that while NJIT had erased the 10-point deficit in the opening 4:32 of the half, Colgate negated it with an 11-0 run in a span of 4:17 to get the 10-point lead right back.
 
Dometirova's three triggered a 7-2 Highlander spurt that trimmed the visitors' lead to 45-40 on Johnson's jump shot with 5:33 left.
 
However, Oakes made a jumper a minute later, sparking a 9-0 Colgate run that resulted in a game-high 14-point lead, 54-40, when Jones connected from beyond the arc with 1:05 left.
 
NJIT, which hadn't scored since the 5:33 mark got a layup from Maticka and a jump shot for Domiterova for four points in the last 41 seconds that closed the final score to 54-44.
 
The Highlanders, who have played seven of their first nine games at home, will be back on campus for one more game this calendar year, as they host Saint Peter's in another non-conference game on Wednesday at 1 pm in the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center.
 
After that, it will be nine straight games away from home, beginning with a game at Minnesota of the Big Ten Conference on December 23.