Box score

HOUSTON—Jamie Spriggs had a game-best double-double, leading all scorers with 22 points and all rebounders, with 13, for Houston Baptist, which upset visiting NJIT, 71-66, in Great West Conference women's basketball Thursday night in HBU's Sharp Gymnasium.

 

Spriggs, a senior center, led her team to its first conference victory in nine tries, as the Huskies upped their overall record to 3-21. Starting guards Megan Green and Tia Jackson added 17 and 10 points, respectively, for Houston Baptist, which snapped a 14-game losing streak.

 

NJIT, which had pummeled HBU, 82-55, on January 15 in Newark, had three double-figure scorers in Thursday's rematch half a continent away. Rayven Johnson paced the Highlander scoring with 14 points, while freshman Uju Nwankwo had her first career double-double, with 12 points (career-high) and 10 rebounds (tied career high).

 

Highlander senior Ivana Seric had another all-around stat game, filling the box with 10 points, 7 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 steals and a block. Freshman Kristian Parker also set a new personal high for points (9) and sophomore Emily Schartner, making her fourth start of the season had a career-best 5 assists to go with 8 points.

 

Thursday's loss, NJIT's third in a row, dropped the Highlanders to 7-15 overall and 3-4 in the Great West Conference.

 

It is no mere coincidence that the Highlanders, who had won six of 10 before this slide, have played all three defeats without senior Jessica Gerald, the team's top scorer (16.1 ppg), who has been injured. Before the injury, she had topped 20 points in six of the previous seven games, topped by 28 points in that January 15 home win over Houston Baptist.

 

On that same January day vs. HBU, Johnson, NJIT's talented sophomore, had one of the best shooting games of any Division I women's basketball player this season, scoring a career-best 30 points and making a school-record 9 3-pointers on just 11 tries, while shooting 10-for-13 from the floor overall.

 

As a team, NJIT made a school-record 17 threes, as Gerald and Johnson combined for 58 points and shot 16-for-24 on threes between them.

 

A month and two days later and playing in a different time zone, NJIT was without Gerald and it was too much to ask Johnson to repeat her superwoman effort of mid-January. As it was, Johnson was solid (14 points, 6 rebounds), but the rematch was much different.

 

HBU, which trailed at the half in Newark, 48-22, led at the half on Thursday, 37-30, paced by 15 points from Green, while Parker had nine to lead NJIT.

 

The Highlanders fell behind early, 10-2, but fought back for a 21-20 advantage on Nwankwo's jumper just past the midpoint of the half. But Green scored the next five points in the game on a 3-pointer and a pair of free throws and the Huskies led the rest of the half, capped by another Green triple with five seconds left for the 37-30 lead at the break.

 

The Huskies, who finished with 12 steals, got three of them in the opening minute of the second half and Spriggs converted a traditional 3-point play to give them a double-digit lead, 40-30, with 18:15 left.

 

NJIT wasn't done, however, coming back to tie the game twice in 33 seconds, the second time at 48 apiece on a Seric bucket with 11:13 left.

 

HBU answered with six straight points, the first four from Joselyn Pugh and the next two from Spriggs. But NJIT clawed back with a pair of baskets by Nwankwo and then a triple by Schartner that put the Highlanders up, 57-56, with 6:18 left.

 

The Highlander lead held up all of 24 seconds, as Pugh made a basket that put the Huskies back on top by a point, 58-57, at 5:54.

 

HBU got the lead to four on another old school 3-point play by Spriggs, but NJIT trimmed the deficit back to a single point three more times, the last on a Johnson jump shot that made the score 65-64 with 1:27 left.

 

HBU shot 6-for-8 at the foul line the rest of the way to nail down the win.

 

NJIT will continue its annual Great West Conference Texas trip, heading about as far south as one can go and still be in the United States, visiting Texas-Pan American in Edinburg for a 5:30 pm (CST) game on Saturday.