Live Stats Link (free)
Live audio play-by-play by Michael Ventola on www.NJITHighlanders.com (free)
Link to live video through the Ivy League Digital Network (subscription rates may apply)
The NJIT women's basketball team will wrap up a four-game stretch against teams from the Ivy League on Saturday when the Highlanders travel to Penn for a 5 pm tipoff in the famed Palestra.
Michael Ventola, voice of the Highlanders, will provide live play-by-play audio of the game here on www.NJITHighlanders.com with coverage beginning at least 15 minutes before the contest on Saturday.
The game will be the only women-men basketball doubleheader of the season. The women tip off in The Palestra at 5 pm and the men's game is set to follow at 7:30 pm. The Palestra, opened in 1927, has hosted more college games overall and more NCAA Tournaments than any other arena in the country. It is also famed as the primary home of Philadelphia's Big Five.
The Highlanders are 5-17 overall and 1-9 on the road, with their lone away win coming at LIU Brooklyn on November 20, 2013. Freshman guard
Alana Dudley drove the lane and scored the final two points of the game with :00.2 remaining, giving the Highlanders a dramatic 60-58 victory.
In the last game for the Highlanders, graduate student
Shakia Robinson scored 16 points and grabbed nine rebounds, but it came in a losing effort, as NJIT dropped a hard-fought 48-45 decision to Dartmouth.
NJIT is 1-2 against the Ivy League this season with a home win over Brown and home losses against Harvard and Dartmouth.
The Highlanders are led by Robinson, the only double-figure scorer on the squad, averaging 11.5 ppg while ranking second on the team with 6.3 rpg. Robinson has scored in double-figures 12 times this season, with three double-doubles.
Penn, which stands at 9-5 overall, is coming off a 74-70 home victory vs. Temple on Wednesday, after dropping the previous three games. Senior captain Alyssa Baron converted a game-winning three-point play in the final minute to propel the Quakers to a 74-70 win over Temple at McGonigle Hall.
Under fifth-year head coach Mike McLaughlin, the Quakers return nine letter winners after a third-place finish last season while bringing five new members to the squad. Penn also returns all five starters from the 2012-13 season that earned the program's first-ever postseason victory and reached the semifinals of the Women's Basketball Invitational. Penn went 2-1 in postseason with wins over Howard and Fairfield while dropping a 71-68 decision at Detroit.
Penn's 18 wins last season tied for the second-most in school history and marked the first winning season since 2004-05.
This season, the Quakers were selected to finish third in the 2013-14 Preseason Ivy League Coaches Poll, behind Harvard and Princeton.
Penn has three players averaging double-figures paced by Alyssa Baron (13.6), Sydney Stipanovich (11.2) and Kara Bonenberger (10.6). Freshman center Stipanovich tops the team on the boards with 7.9rpg and total blocks with 42 while junior forward Kara Bonenberger ranks second in rebounds with 6.1rpg.
This will be just the third meeting between the two programs. The Highlanders took the previous two match-ups during the 2010-11 and 2011-12 seasons. NJIT won the last meeting at The Palestra, 74-63 on Nov. 27, 2010 and then topped the Quakers the following season in Newark, 52-48, on Jan. 11, 2012.
