Post Game Interview

NEWARK, NJ—Visiting Dartmouth built a 21-6 lead after one quarter and made the advantage hold up in a low-scoring wire-to-wire 46-39 non-conference women's basketball victory at NJIT Thursday afternoon in the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center.
 
The win lifts the Big Green's season record to 5-11, with three of the wins coming in the last four games. NJIT drops to 3-10 with the New Year's Eve home loss vs. Dartmouth.
 
Lakin Roland, a senior forward for Dartmouth, led all scorers with 16 points and she also passed a personal milestone, scoring her 1,000th career point on a foul line jump shot with 5:46 remaining in the opening quarter.
 
Roland scored the game's first points on a layup and foul shot with 7:56 left in the first and Daisy Jordan followed with a layup that put the visitors ahead, 5-0.
 
NJIT came back with a pair of buckets before Roland scored her milestone basket to make it 7-4 for the Big Green. Camerin Spahn scored for the Highlanders 31 seconds later, trimming her team's deficit to one with 5:15 left in the opening quarter.
 
However, Dartmouth blanked NJIT for the rest of the opening period, while also adding 14 unanswered points claim the 21-6 lead after one quarter. The Highlanders outscored the visitors in both the second and fourth quarters, but never got closer to the lead than 4 points and that was after an Alana Dudley layup pulled the Highlanders to 43-39 with 27 seconds remaining in the game.
 
Dudley finished as the only NJIT player in double-figure points, netting 10 in the game, 5 in the fourth quarter.
 
Leah Horton, who added 9 points, notched a season-high and game-best 15 rebounds, one shy of the career-high 16 boards she grabbed last February against Delaware State. With Horton leading the way. NJIT outrebounded Dartmouth, 37-28.
 
Freshman Tatianna Torres provided a spark off the NJIT bench, getting a new personal-best 6 rebounds and scoring 4 points.
 
Trailing by 15 points at the end of the opening period, the Highlanders used a 13-6 second quarter to narrow Dartmouth's halftime lead to 27-19. Roland had a game-best 10 points in the opening half and Jordan followed her with 7 points. Horton and Dudley, with 5 points apiece, paced NJIT through the first half.
 
Despite making inroads in the second quarter, the Highlanders' momentum stalled in the third quarter, as they managed just a Horton layup through the first 8:15 coming out of the halftime break.
 
Dartmouth wasn't doing a lot on its offensive end of the floor in the quarter, either. But the visitors still scored enough to push their third-quarter lead as high as 14 and the Big Green held a 38-25 advantage at the end of the third.
 
NJIT put together a 7-0 run to begin the fourth quarter, capped by Ronni Grandison's running jump shot in the paint that closed the gap to 32-27 with 7:26 remaining in the game.
 
Lakin's 3-pointer for Dartmouth put the visitors back up by double-digits, 43-32, with 5:46 on the clock. However, another 7-0 spurt by NJIT, starting with a Kelly Guarino 3-pointer, followed by two free throws for Torres and then Dudley's layup with 27 seconds remaining closed the gap to 43-39.
 
Kate Letkewicz finished off the win for Dartmouth by canning three foul shots in the closing 23 seconds.
 
Next up for the Highlanders is another Ivy League opponent, Brown, which is set to visit the Fleisher Athletic Center on Monday, January 4 for a 2 pm game.