DOVER, DE—Host and top seed Delaware State scored once in each half and kept visiting NJIT off the board for 90 minutes, powering the Hornets to a 2-0 win Sunday in the final of the four-team Division I Independent women's soccer tournament.
 
Delaware State's two tournament wins (the Hornets beat South Carolina State in Friday's semifinal, 1-0), preceded by a 3-0 win over Howard in the regular season finale, puts DSU's final record at 6-12-1.
 
NJIT (3-13-2) had defeated Delaware State by a 2-1 score in a home game on October 10 and had gotten through to Sunday's title game by virtue of a 4-2 penalty kick shootout over Francis Marion after the team played to a 1-1 tie through 90 minutes of regulation and 20 minutes of overtime.
 
In Sunday's other game for third place, also played at DSU, Francis Marion lost 1-0 to South Carolina State.
 
Delaware State gained the upper hand on the Highlanders early in Sunday's title game on an unassisted goal by junior Morgan Durham in the 13th minute.
 
Playing down a goal presents a difficult challenge for NJIT, which counts on its ability to prevent goals to stay competitive. However, the Highlanders had fallen behind on Friday against Francis Marion, absorbing a goal in the eighth minute. On Friday, defender Jaclyn Ward equalized for NJIT late in the first half and the teams fought to a standstill the rest of the way, opening the door to the tiebreaker penalty kick shootout.
 
Delaware State's Chelsea Boursiquot made it 2-0 barely three minutes into the second half. The goal was the senior Boursiquot's DSU-best sixth of the season, with junior Tere Crawford assisting.
 
Once it fell behind 2-0, NJIT's season's history said the Highlanders were in trouble. Only twice in the season's first 17 games had the Highlanders scored as many as two goals in a full game, albeit one of the two-goal games came against the same Delaware State side at home in New Jersey less than a month ago.
 
Still, the Highlanders needed at least two scores in the final 42 minutes to keep their season going a few minutes longer. It didn't happen, even though five of NJIT's seven-shot total came after the Highlanders fell behind 2-0.
 
The total shots favored Delaware State, 13-7, but the on-target attempts were even at two apiece. Delaware State senior Katelyn Koslosky made two saves in goal for the clean sheet, while NJIT's keeper Karen David was not credited with a save.
 
For NJIT, seniors Jenny Cislo, Megan Dellavalle, Kylie Jones, and Grace Seely all played their final college games. Fellow senior Rebecca Tustin had sustained a season-ending injury in mid-September before making a brief start on Senior Night in October, coming off at the first whistle that night, as planned.
 
Cislo, Dellavalle, and Seely all started and Jones played 54 minutes as a substitute on Sunday.
 
Cislo completed Sunday's game with a remarkable feat, having started and played every minute of every game as the team's best defender in a 4-year career that took in 76 games. She is arguably the best defender in NJIT women's soccer history and almost certainly the best to play her entire career in the program's Division I era, which began in 2006.