Box score

NEWARK, NJ—Ryan Woods scored 19 points in 18 minutes, leading NJIT past visiting SUNY Cobleskill, 95-57, Saturday afternoon in the last men's basketball game for the Highlanders ahead of the start of Great West Conference play next Thursday.
 
Chris Flores (14 points) and Sammy Schickel (12) joined Woods as double-figure scorers for the Highlanders (7-9), who snapped a two-game losing streak in preparation for their Great West opener, when they host Houston Baptist at 7 pm on January 19 in the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center.
 
The 19 points for Woods, a junior in his first season as a Highlander, were his new NJIT high, topping the 16 he registered against Georgetown last month on December 3.
 
All fourteen players in uniform for NJIT on Saturday played and 13 of them scored at least two points in the final game of the season against non-Division I competition.
 
SUNY Cobleskill (1-12) also had three double-figure scorers, led by senior Tarik Payton's 19 points. Payton, who came in averaging 5.3 points per game, shot 9-for-14 against the Highlanders and scored 11 points in the first half and eight in the second.
 
Another Cobleskill senior Clint Foster, who made 3-pointers on his team's first two possessions for an early 6-2 lead, finished with 16 points and Brendan Doherty added 14 points for the Fighting Tigers. Doherty entered the game averaging 12.5 points per game, while Foster was averaging 12.3 ppg.
 
NJIT overwhelmed its visitors on the boards, 45-22, led by six rebounds apiece from senior Isaiah Wilkerson and freshman Daquan Holiday. For Holiday, the six rebounds matched his season high and he added four points, three assists, two blocks and a steal in a season-high 16 minutes. In addition to Wilkerson and Holiday, the Highlanders got five rebounds apiece from Flores, Schickel, and Garrett Frick.
 
The Highlanders also connected on 15-of-26 3-point tries (57.7 percent), as Woods made five threes (5-8) and Flores and Sammy Schickel each made four triples, with Flores missing one and Schickel missing two.
 
SUNY Cobleskill made six 3-pointers in the first half and eight in the game, led by Foster, who was 4-for-10 for distance and showed no hesitation to shoot from as far as 25 feet from the basket.
 
The game began with an NJIT turnover and Foster hit his first triple for a 3-0 SUNY Cobleskill lead on the first Fighting Tigers possession. Flores answered for NJIT with a layup, but Foster hit another three on the other end for a 6-2 lead at 18:56.
 
The Highlanders then ran off 12 unanswered points in 3:09, taking a 14-6 lead after a Woods layup.
 
Foster's third 3-pointer of the game cut NJIT's lead back to 14-9 with 14:32 left in the half, but Frick made a layup 17 seconds later and Schickel's three on the next Highlander possession gave the home team its first double-digit lead of the day, 19-9, with 13:47 left.
 
The Fighting Tigers cut the lead to single-digits two more times, the last at 24-16 on a Payton jumper with 10:10 on the clock, but NJIT responded with a 14-3 run over the next 3:07, making it 38-19 for the home team with 7:02 left.
 
NJIT led by at least 17 points the rest of the half and built its lead to 55-31 by halftime. Woods led all scorers at the break, with 16 points and Flores added 11 for the Highlanders, while Payton's 11 points topped SUNY Cobleskill.
 
Holding a 24-point advantage at the break, NJIT coach Jim Engles went back to his five starters—Woods, Flores, Wilkerson, PJ Miller, and Ryan Regis to start the second half, but they all exited in a mass substitution at the 17:16 mark, leaving the rest of the game to the eight Highlander backups with a 63-33 lead.
 
Arjun Ohri and freshman Odera Nweke each scored eight points to lead the Highlanders in the second half, while Sammy Schickel added six points. Ohri also had four assists and Holiday collected all six of his rebounds in the second half.
 
Senior Teddy Schickel, Sammy's twin brother, saw his first game action of the season and played 11 minutes. He did not score, but picked up two rebounds and two steals.
 
Teddy, who played a combined 57 games with nine starts in his freshman and sophomore seasons, has been hampered by chronically sore knees the last two years. He appeared in six games as a junior and was not in uniform until this season's 10th game at Rutgers on December 22. His availability continues to be a game-to-game question.
 
NJIT led by at least 31 points for the last 8:35 and got its lead to as many as 42 points twice in the last 2:29.
 
The Highlanders will continue at home for the first two Great West Conference games, as they host Houston Baptist at 7 pm on Thursday and then Texas-Pan American on Saturday at 2 pm.
 
NJIT won both regular season games against the Huskies last season, topping HBU at home (96-84 on January 15, 2011) and in Houston (72-66 on February 17, 2011). However, when the teams met in the opening round of the Great West postseason tournament in Utah, Houston Baptist came out with the win, 72-70. The Huskies also knocked NJIT out of the first GWC Tournament in 2010 (74-64).