Box Score

PHOTO GALLERY OF SENIOR DAY PRESENTATIONS


NEWARK, NJ—NJIT women's basketball closed the home portion of the 2013-14 season in style, taking an entertaining and exciting contest from visiting UMass Lowell, 87-75, Tuesday in the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center on Senior Night.
 
There were plenty of individual and team highlights for the Highlanders who ran their late-season winning streak to three games and raised their season's record to 8-20 with one game (Saturday at Hofstra) still to play. UMass Lowell completes its first season of NCAA Division I competition with a 5-23 record.
 
Graduate student Shakia Robinson had a double-double for the Highlanders with 15 points and a game-high 12 rebounds, topping the 1,000-point career mark in the process. Robinson, who played her first three seasons at the main UMass campus in Amherst, is using her final season of eligibility with the Highlanders after graduating from UMass in 2013. The double-double against UMass Lowell was the fifth of the season for Robinson.
 
She entered Tuesday's home finale with 988 points between the two schools and scored her 1,000th and 1,001st points on a layup with 3:39 remaining. In short order, she made another layup on a fast break 22 seconds later and committed her fifth, and disqualifying foul, seven seconds after that. Robinson shot 7-for-9 from the floor in the win.
 
The assist on both of Robinson's last two buckets went to junior point guard Alyssa Albanese, who had a superb game with a points-assists double-double, netting a career-high 23 points (6-11 field goals, 3-5 on threes, and 8-10 at the foul line) and matching her career-best 10 assists.
 
Albanese's previous career scoring high was 18 vs. Texas-Pan American on January 12, 2013, and her previous season points high was 16 on February 22, in the previous game at Incarnate Word in San Antonio, TX. Her assists total vs. UMass Lowell matched her NJIT Division I school record, set December 10 this season in a home win against Fairleigh Dickinson. Albanese raised her season's total in assists to 111, 21 more than the previous school Division I record.
 
For all that, the leading scorer for NJIT was junior Martina Matejcikova, who matched her personal career high with 27 points. Martina, who also scored 27 at Maryland Eastern Shore back on January 29, finished 10-for-17 from the floor against UMass Lowell, including a sizzling 5-for-6 from behind the 3-point line. She also made both free throws.
 
Matejcikova did most of her damage in 17 minutes work in the second half, when she scored 18 and made all four of her 3-point tries and 6-for-9 on all field goal attempts, plus the two foul shots.
 
Uju Nwankwo, a four-year Highlander, pulled down 11 rebounds in her final home game, while adding 7 points. With the two Senior Night honorees, Robinson and Nwankwo, leading the way with a combined 23 rebounds, NJIT enjoyed a 46-37 advantage in total team rebounds.
 
UMass Lowell scored 75 points and 52 of them came from two players. Junior Shannon Samuels led all scorers with 29 points, scoring 15 at the foul line, where she was 15-for-17. Jasmine McRoy added 23 points and 9 rebounds, while Lindsey Doucette paced the Riverhawks on the boards, pulling down 11 rebounds. The sophomore added 8 points and made a game-leading 4 steals, one more than McRoy.
 
Tuesday's 87 points for the Highlanders were the most against a Division I opponent since February 18, 2012, when NJIT trounced Houston Baptist, 88-28.
 
The Highlanders scored the first two points of the contest on a Matejcikova jump shot with 78 seconds in, but NJIT eventually fell behind 10-9 on a traditional 3-point play for Samuels with 14:46 left.
 
NJIT answered with seven straight points on a 3-pointer for Alana Dudley, a layup by Robinson and a jumper by Nwankwo in a span of 56 seconds, making it 16-10 in favor of the home team.
 
But UMass Lowell was far from done, dropping back no more than six and then retaking the lead with an 8-2, capped by a 3-pointer for Nicole Haymer that gave the visitors a brief 23-22 edge with 8:26 on the first-half clock.
 
Finding itself down a point, NJIT spurted 10-0, with five points each from Robinson and Matejcikova to take the Highlanders' biggest lead of the opening half, 32-23, on Robinson's layup with 5:34 left.
 
With McRoy scoring six in the final three minutes of the half, the teams went into the locker rooms with the Highlanders holding a 44-39 lead, as McRoy scored 17 points and Samuels scored 10 in the opening stanza. Albanese, with 10 points and 5 assists in 17 first-half minutes, pace the Highlanders, followed by nine points apiece for Robinson and Matejcikova.
 
Up by five at the half, NJIT never trailed in the second, but UML kept the deficit in single-digits until Albanese made one of two free throws to give her team a 66-56 advantage with 6:47 left. The junior hit a pair of foul shots 30 seconds later for a 12-point lead, but the Riverhawks had another run in them.
 
Trailing 68-56, the visitors got two free throws from Samuels and then two jump shots from McRoy, all in a span of 21 seconds to trim NJIT's lead to 68-62 with 5:39 remaining.
 
Highlander coach Steve Lanpher took a timeout in a bid to halt UML's momentum and it worked, as NJIT came out of the timeout with an 8-4 spurt, going ahead 76-66 on Robinson's final bucket of the night, a layup with 3:17 left.
 
UMass Lowell kept coming, scoring 9 points the rest of the way, but the visitors couldn't make a dent with the Highlanders scoring 11 in the same span. Matejcikova scored nine of the points on three 3-pointers and she assisted on the other basket, a layup for Nicole Maticka, who finished with 8 points, 8 rebounds, and 3 blocks in just her third game back from injury after missing 15 consecutive games from December 7 through February 3.
 
With Tuesday's win, Lanpher, in his second season as NJIT coach, is 5-0 in games played in March and 10-2 in games played in February and March combined. Last season, the Highlanders won their last five in a row, including wins in the semifinal and final of the 2013 Great West Conference Tournament in Chicago.
 
While Tuesday's game ended the season for UMass Lowell, NJIT has one game remaining due to the snowstorm-filled winter. The Highlanders were scheduled to play at Hofstra on February 13, but heavy snow postponed that contest, which is now re-scheduled for Saturday at 1 pm on Long Island.