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 Junior guard Jill Dickinson |
Jan. 15, 2008
NEWARK - NJIT took a 20-6 lead in the first seven minutes of its women's basketball game against visiting Cornell, but it was the Big Red that led at the end, 75-60, in the first women's athletic competition ever held in the new downtown Newark Prudential Center Tuesday night.
Cornell, with a balanced offense, had four double-figure scorers, paced by junior Moina Snyder's 16 points. Snyder, from France, also had a game-high 10 rebounds, leading her team to a 49-34 advantage on the boards.
Freshman Virginia McMunigal scored 14 points off the Cornell bench, while Gretchen Gregg added 11 points and Jeomi Maduka finished with 10 points along with a game-high four steals. Freshman Lauren Benson collected nine assists for the winners.
NJIT had three double-figure scorers of its own, led by Jill Dickinson's 15 points. Jessica Gerald, coming off a school-record 37 points last Friday against Cal State Bakersfield, added 14 points and freshman Ivana Seric finished with a career-best 12 points.
Seric, the native of Croatia playing her third game since joining the Highlanders, started the second half, but played just one more minute before being injured and spending the rest of the game on the bench.
Taiwo Oyelola was the top rebounder for NJIT, controlling five boards before fouling out. Her twin sister, Kehinde Oyelola, made three steals.
The Highlanders, who swept both ends of a trip to Texas last week, appeared primed to make it three in a row when they blistered Cornell for 20 quick points--11 by Dickinson and seven by Seric, as Dickinson connected on three three-pointers and Seric added one in the opening spurt.
In what turned out to be a game of big runs, Cornell dominated the next seven minutes even more than NJIT had dominated the first seven. The Big Red went on a 26-6 tear that turned a 20-6 deficit into a 32-26 lead after Maduka made with 5:13 left in the first half.
Cornell pushed its advantage to as many as nine points, but Taiwo Oyelola made a three-pointer to beat the halftime buzzer, making the score 40-34 in favor of the visitors at the break.
Both teams had one player with 12 points and one with 11 points at halftime. For Cornell, it was Snyder with 12 and McMunigal with 11, while Seric had 12 for the Highlanders and Dickinson had 11.
Cornell's Allie Fedorowicz hit back-to-back three-pointers, staking the visitors to a 46-34 lead to open the second half.
By the midway point of the second half, Cornell opened its biggest lead, 22 points at 61-39, following McMunigal's jump shot at the 10:47 mark.
Still down 19 with 7:18 left in the game, NJIT went on a 14-5 run of its own that closed its deficit to 68-58 after Dickinson's two made free throws with 2:03 left.
NJIT, which got 15 second-half points off of turnovers, might have had more if not for 3-for-8 stretch at the foul line during the spurt that cut the deficit from 19 points to 10.
Cornell outscored NJIT, 7-2, over the last two minutes for the 75-60 final.
The Highlanders will host fellow Division I Independent Longwood on Saturday at 2 pm in the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center.
