NEWARK, NJ—NJIT scored its most convincing home women's basketball victory of the season, going wire-to-wire to defeat visiting Maryland Eastern Shore, 70-41, Tuesday night in the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center.
Putting aside a 92-39 win over an overmatched Division III opponent, College of St. Joseph (VT), NJIT's 29-point margin of victory against Maryland Eastern Shore (11-15) was the largest bulge of the season for the Highlanders.
Tuesday's night's 70 points for NJIT are second to the 76 scored in winning at Wofford in Spartanburg, SC, on January 2. And Maryland Eastern Shore's 41 points were the lowest total by a Division I opponent this season, four points less than Columbia, which edged the Highlanders, 45-38, on January 12.
The large winning margin came as something as a surprise, considering the fact that the Lady Hawks won the first time the program's met (68-61 on January 29, 2014, in Princess Anne, MD). On top of that, Maryland Eastern Shore had a blowout win of its own over Delaware State, 96-59, 10 days ago on Valentine's Day 2015. Delaware State, in turn had beaten the Highlanders in overtime, 56-54, on February 3 this year.
Starting the game with a 16-2 lead and building a 19-point halftime advantage, NJIT coach
Steve Lanpher was able to use his full roster, with nine players getting at least 10 minutes of action. As a result, many of the other individual statistics were spread out, as well.
NJIT sophomore
Leah Horton was the game's leading scorer with 12 points, followed closely by seniors
Nicole Maticka and
Alyssa Albanese with 11 points apiece.
Horton grabbed 8 rebounds to share game honors with redshirt freshman
Maria Ruban, who came off the bench for a career-high 8 rebounds in 18 minutes.
Albanese put her name at the top of another category in the NJIT Division I record book, making a game-high 4 steals to bring her career mark to 132, surpassing Taiwo Oyelola's old program DI standard of 131 steals from 2006-10.
The senior point guard Albanese also dished out a game-high 7 assists, increasing her career total to 343. That mark is the program Division I record and is second overall (Divisions I, II, and III). Only Nicole Ballou (396 from 1999-2003 when NJIT was in Division II) has more career assists than Albanese.
Maticka, who scored 11 points, notched a game-leading 3 blocks, extending her career total to 230, 50 rejections more than any other player in the history of a program that began play in 1986-87.
Maryland Eastern Shore, which made just 26.2 percent of its shots from the field, including 3-for-21 on 3-point attempts, did not have a double-figure scorer against the Highlanders. Junior TeAmber Burke, who played 20 minutes off the bench for the Lady Hawks, finished with 8 points and a team-leading 3 steals.
The visitors were outrebounded, but not in lopsided fashion, as NJIT had a 43-34 advantage under the backboard. However, freshman Shauntesha Bryant and junior Taylor Thompson were the team individual rebounding co-leaders with four each. No UMES player had more than two assists. One of them was redshirt junior Alexis Udoji, who also blocked two shots.
Maryland Eastern Shore won the opening tip, but missed its first two shots. Horton scored on the other end to give NJIT a 2-0 lead and Jessica Long, who came in averaging a team-best 13.7 points per game for the Lady Hawks, scored seconds later for a 2-2 tie that would be the high-water mark for the visitors on what would become a difficult night on offense.
With the score at 2-2, Maticka made a steal for the Highlanders and got the ball to
Kim Tullis, who fed an assist to Albanese on a fast-break layup for a 4-2 NJIT lead less than two minutes into the game.
The Albanese layup sparked a 14-0 NJIT run, as UMES missed its next 10 shots from the field, as well as a pair of free throws and a turnover before Mariah McCoy finally got the visitors back on the scoreboard with a layup that made the score 16-4 with 11:07 remaining in the first half.
The Highlanders continued to expand their lead, however, as they went up 20 for the first time when
Camerin Spahn's jump shot pushed the score to 25-5 with 6:54 to go in the first half.
NJIT would take three more 20-point leads in the half and eventually went up 39-17 after a steal and layup by Albanese 1:43 before the halftime buzzer.
Nine Highlanders had already entering the scoring column at halftime, topped by 9 points from
Albanese, 8 from Horton and 7 from Tullis. Moengaroa Subritzky, a redshirt freshman from New Zealand, had 6 points to top UMES at the half.
Starting the second half with a 19-point advantage, NJIT led by at least 17 throughout the half and by at least 23 points over the final 16:44.
Up by 30 with seven minutes still on the clock, the Highlanders took their biggest lead of the night, 32 points, at 67-35, with 3:09 remaining.
The 2014-15 schedule for the Highlanders is down to just two games. They will play their final home contest on Friday at 7 pm, when they host St. Joseph's Brooklyn. The home finale will be preceded by Senior Night ceremonies honoring Albanese, Maticka,
Martina Matejcikova, and Tullis, all of whom are four-year members of the basketball program.
The women's basketball season ends on March 3 in northern Massachusetts at UMass Lowell.
