NEWARK, NJ—NJIT won its third consecutive game, cooling off hot Maryland Eastern Shore, 69-60, in men's basketball Wednesday night in the Fleisher Athletic Center.
 
The final score left the teams with identical 8-9 records. NJIT, which previously defeated Saint Francis U and UMBC, now has its first 3-game winning streak of the season. Maryland Eastern Shore saw its own 3-game winning streak come to end with the loss vs. NJIT. The Hawks had won 7 of the previous 9.
 
NJIT had three double-figure scorers against the visiting Hawks, headed by a career-best 17 points from sophomore forward Tim Coleman, who also paced the Highlanders on the boards with 6 rebounds.
 
Ky Howard followed Coleman with 13 points and Winfield Willis scored 12. The Highlanders are 8-2 when Willis scores at least 10 points.
 
Senior center Michael Myers was virtually unstoppable for Maryland Eastern Shore, accounting for nearly half of his team's points (29 out of 60) and pulling down a game-leading 16 rebounds.
 
Myers, a physically imposing 6-foot-9 low post presence, made 9-of-13 shots from the floor, all from within a few feet of the basket. He also shot 11-for-12 (92 percent) at the foul line after coming in shooting just 63 percent on free throws in the previous 16 games this season.
 
Both game totals in rebounds and points were the most this year for the senior Myers, who is in his first season playing for UMES. However, he now has three consecutive double-doubles and has scored in double-figures 13 times, including the last 10 games in a row.
 
Although NJIT never found a good defensive answer for Myers, the Highlanders did a good job blunting the rest of the Hawks' weapons. While Myers scored 29, fellow senior Ishaq Pitt was next in the scoring with 7 points and no other Hawk scored more than 5.
 
Maryland Eastern Shore, which came into the game having made 101 3-point field goals and with three individuals having made at least 27 3-pointers, shot just 2-for-16 from distance against the Highlanders, whose game plan emphasized closing out on the outside shooters. The Hawks were an identical 1-for-8 on threes in each half.
 
Overall, UMES made just 34.5 percent of its total field goal attempts in the game and was 10-for-32 (31 percent) from the floor in the second half.
 
On the other end, the Highlanders shot 55 percent (22-for-40) from the field overall and 59 percent (10-for-17) in the second half. They were 17-for-25 (68 percent) from inside the arc for the game.
 
NJIT, which led by 17 points, 50-33, after an Odera Nweke bucket with 11:33 left, kept the lead in double-digits until a Mark Blackmon layup pulled the visitors to within nine with 3:14 left. UMES later got the score to 67-60 when Ryan Andino made the team's only second-half 3-pointer, but by then only 13 seconds remained.
 
The Highlanders, who are not a big team by Division I standards, have rebounded well most of the season, actually outrebounding Marquette from the BIG EAST Conference and playing even on the boards in their upset win over #17/#16 Michigan. Such was not the case Wednesday, when NJIT was  decisively outrebounded by Maryland Eastern Shore, 43-24.
 
The Hawks got an impressive 23 offensive rebounds and it was the first time this season an opponent had a total rebounding margin better than +9 against the Highlanders.
 
However, NJIT compensated in part with the strong perimeter defense and a 26-15 final advantage in points-off-turnovers. The Highlander defense got 19 turnovers out of the Hawks, two less than the season-high 21 miscues by UMBC in the previous game on January 2.
 
The game did not start well defensively for NJIT, which found itself in a 9-1 hole just 2:40 into the contest, as Myers got the first score on a transition dunk; Devon Walker hit what would be his team's only 3-pointer of the first half; Devin Martin made a jump shot and Myers scored on a layup to make it 9-1.
 
The Highlanders got back close, but they didn't take the lead until a baseline layup for Daquan Holiday made it 17-15, NJUT, 7:10 on the first-half clock.
 
The Holiday layup was part of a 20-3 NJIT run that began with two Rob Ukawuba free throws and ended with a fast-break layup for Winfield Willis, flipping a 15-11 UMES lead to a 31-18 Highlander advantage between the 7:47 mark and the 1:33 mark.
 
Myers scored four more points in the last 55 seconds of the opening half that ended with NJIT on top, 31-24 and netted 13 of his team's 24 first-half points, while Willis had 7 points and Coleman and Howard had 6 apiece for NJIT.
  
Maryland Eastern Shore outscored NJIT. 3-1, to open the second half, but then Damon Lynn and Coleman hit back-to-back 3-pointers, followed by consecutive layups by Ukawuba for a 10-0 Highlander run that put them in firm control for the rest of the night.
 
NJIT has eight of its next 11 games scheduled at home in the Fleisher Athletic Center, where the Highlanders are 4-1 so far this season. They face one of their tougher foes Friday at 7 pm, when Yale comes to town. The Bulldogs are 10-5, including a 55-54 upset victory at UConn, the defending national champions, on the night of December 5, less than 24 hours before NJIT stunned Michigan in Ann Arbor.
 
Yale's most recent game was a 79-74 double overtime loss at Vanderbilt, which plays in the powerful Southeastern Conference and went 10-3 on the season after topping Yale on January 3 in Nashville.