Box Score
 
SOUTH ORANGE, NJ—Seton Hall exploded for 49 first-half points, one more than NJIT would get in the full game, and the Pirates prevailed over the visiting Highlanders, 74-48, Saturday afternoon in women's basketball at Walsh Gymnasium.
 
Seton Hall (8-2) was paced by sophomore forward Tabatha Richardson-Smith's game-high 21 points – 19 points in the first half.  Richardson-Smith, the Big East's leading scorer (20.8 ppg) finished the game shooting 8-for-15 from the field and 4-of-8 from behind the arc.
 
Junior Ka-Deidre Simmons scored 14 points for the Pirates, while adding six assists, four steals and four boards.  Alexis Brown, who was sidelined for the first nine games of the season due to injury, returned to the court Saturday finishing with 11 points and a career-high seven assists.
 
Forward Sidney Cook just missed notching a double-double combining for nine points, a game-high 15 rebounds and career-high four blocks as the Pirates held a 47-to-34 advantage on the boards.
 
NJIT (3-10) had one double-figure scorer, senior Uju Nwankwo with 11 points to go with nine rebounds.  Junior Denisa Domiterova added nine points, while freshman Alana Dudley netted eight points coming off the bench for the Highlanders.
 
In the opening minutes, the Highlanders held a four-point advantage, 8-4, after back-to-back three-pointers by Domiterova. But the Pirates responded and took the lead for good, scoring the next 16 straight for a 12-point lead, 20-8.
 
NJIT's Shakia Robinson made a jumper at 14:14 to break the scoring drought for the visitors for a 20-10 score, but Seton Hall forged ahead, going up by 22 with 12 more unanswered points, making for a 28-2 overall run by the Pirates.
 
Alana Dudley ended the Highlanders second scoring drought of the day with a three-pointer with 6:16 remaining in the first half.  But Seton Hall closed out the first half on a 17-5 run for a 49-21 halftime score.  NJIT freshman Camerin Spahn sank a three-pointer at the buzzer to head into the locker room.
 
Richardson-Smith was the top scorer in the first intermission with 19 points, followed by Simmons with 10, while NJIT's leading scoring was Domiterova with nine points on 3-of-6 from three-point range.
 
Trailing 49-21 at half, the Highlanders cut the deficit down to 23 midway through the second half on a pair of free throws by Shakia Robinson, for a 59-36 score.
 
Seton Hall's Alexis Brown scored six unanswered points capped by a three-pointer at 7:47, pushing the Pirate lead to 29, 65-36.  The Pirates later claimed their biggest lead, 34, 74-40, on a pair of free throws by Tara Inman with 3:18 remaining.
 
The Highlanders, who fought till the end, scored the game's final eight points, sparked by a three-pointer by Olivia Dudley at the 3:07 mark.
 
NJIT will have seven days off before hosting Virginia Commonwealth on Saturday, December 28 at 2pm in the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center.
 
VCU will bring a 9-game winning streak and 10-1 overall record to town after having clobbered Florida A&M on Sunday, 94-67. The Rams who have had 9-game winning streaks in the past, have never won 10 in a row in the program's 40-year existence.

NJIT assistant coach La Kea Jones is a 2008 graduate of VCU, where she was a 4-year starting point guard and left as the program's all-time leader in games played and minutes played. As a senior, she led the Colonial Athletic Association in assists. Jones joined the NJJT coaching staff in the summer of 2010.