Box Score

NEWARK, NJ—Sophomore Martina Matejcikova's 3-point shot with 7.8 seconds remaining was the difference for NJIT in its 53-51 women's basketball win over visiting Colgate Tuesday night in the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center.
 
Matejcikova, who finished the game with seven points, got five of them in the last 1:29, starting with a short running baseline jump shot that put the Highlanders up, 50-49, before Colgate's senior guard Jhazmine Lynch answered with the last two of her game-high 21 points, lifting the Raiders to a 51-50 lead with 59 seconds left.
 
Matejcikova scored the game-winner two possessions later, taking an inside-out feed from Kimberly Dweck and, without hesitation, draining the three from the top of the key with 7.8 seconds left. After timeouts by each team, Colgate got the ball to Lynch for a 19-foot shot ahead of the buzzer, but the try was off target, allowing NJIT and its supporters to exhale.
 
“Martina is a great athlete and she's starting to gain in confidence other phases of her game and it showed down the stretch,” said NJIT coach Steve Lanpher, whose team won its third straight.
 
NJIT (11-14) has come out on top in a series of close games. The Highlanders beat Utah Valley, 49-46, on January 26 and then came from 18 points down to defeat Texas-Pan American, 81-75, in overtime over the weekend in Texas. And the streak went to three with Tuesday's two-point win over Colgate. The loss, Colgate's ninth straight since a January 3 win vs. NJIT in Hamilton, NY, puts the Raiders' season mark at 6-18.
 
Aside from Lynch's game-high 21 points, Colgate got 11 points off the bench from freshman center Josie Stockill, who also led the Raiders with nine rebounds and five blocked shots.
 
The only double-figure scorer for NJIT was senior Rayven Johnson, who finished with 19 points along with a game-high 16 rebounds. Johnson, who set the program Division I record in her previous game with 17 rebounds in the win at Texas-Pan American, posted her 12th double-double of the season and the 23rd of her stellar career.
 
Sophomore Nicole Maticka, who started for the first time this season, did not put up big scoring or rebounding numbers (6 points, 1 rebound), but she tied her own school Division I record with nine blocked shots, matching her total from last February 26, when she rejected nine vs. Longwood.
 
Maticka, like her fellow Slovakian countrywoman Matejcikova, timed her scoring well. Two of Maticka's three baskets in the game came late in the second half to help NJIT handle a  Colgate push that saw the Raiders overcome a 12-point second-half deficit to take a pair of one-point leads in the closing two minutes.
 
“Nicole did a great job for us in her first start,” said Lanpher. “She had to come up big with Uju (Nwankwo) in foul trouble and she played with the aggressiveness we've been looking for. Martina, of course, and Denisa (Dometirova) gave us a lift off the bench and we're seeing the combination of Alyssa Albanese (game-high 5 assists) and Kim Dweck click at point guard.”
 
Down six with 7:22 left, Colgate closed to within two points, 44-42, after a Mariah Jones layup at the 4:52 mark and Maticka answered with a layup on the ensuing NJIT possession.
 
Lulu Brase scored to pull Colgate back within two, but Maticka answered again, pushing the Highlander lead back to 48-44 with 3:53 to play, but Lynch hit her fifth triple of the night on the next possession and 'Gate surged ahead, 49-48, Stockill's up-and-under layup at 1:59.
 
That led to the final decisive sequence, as Matejcikova hit her short jumper for a one-point NJIT lead, Lynch put the Raiders back on top with a put-back ahead of Matejcikova's game-winning 3-pointer for the Highlanders.
 
Double-up by Colgate, 72-36, back on January 2 in upstate New York, NJIT held a slim 22-20 halftime lead in the rematch. NJIT's biggest lead of the half was four in the early going and Colgate built a six-point advantage twice in the half, the first time on Brase's layup that made it 17-12 with 6:24 on the first-half clock. That bucket was the only one of the first half for the 6-foot-2 senior Brase who had netted a career-high 15 points against the Highlanders in the first meeting. The top first-half scorers were NJIT's Johnson and Colgate's Lynch, with eight apiece.
 
“We saw this as a barometer game to measure how far we've come in the month since we lost up there (at Colgate),” said Lanpher. “We're a different team now—our defensive communication and intensity are so much better.”
 
The Highlanders scored the first seven points of the second half for a 29-20 lead before Stockill broke the ice for the visitors on a layup and free throw at the 17:13 mark.
 
With her team ahead by six, Johnson doubled the advantage to 12 points, 35-23, starting with two free throws at 16:17, a 3-pointer at 15:43, and the second of two free throws at 13:33.
 
The Highlanders still held an 11-point edge, 39-28, after two Matejcikova foul shots near the midway point of the second half. But Lynch hit threes on the next two possessions and Jones connected from downtown on the third possession, nearly erasing the entire NJIT lead in a span of 1:17, as the visitors cut the deficit to 39-37 on Jones' triple with 8:08 left.
 
Johnson scored a layup and Melanie Griffin sunk a pair of free throws—the Highlanders were 10-for-12 from the line for the night—making it 43-37 with 7:22 left.
 
However, Colgate scored on the following possession and neither team would lead by more than four the rest of the way, setting the stage for a finish that saw four lead changes in the closing two minutes.
 
Outscored in the paint, 34-6, the first time against Colgate, NJIT played the Raiders on much closer terms near the basket, where Colgate still had the edge, but nowhere near as big, 22-16, in the rematch.
 
“We did a much better job defending in the paint,” said Lanpher. “And we finished (the defensive possessions) with rebounds.
 
NJIT is slated to visit Great West Conference foe Utah Valley on Saturday at 3 pm (MST). NJIT is 3-1 in conference play, including a hard-fought 49-46 win over UVU on January 26 in Newark.