FINAL STATS

Brooklyn, NY – Senior center Kelly Clark (Neptune, NJ/ St. Rose) scored 20 points on 9-of-13 shooting from the field, which came on the heels of a 23-point outing in Saturday's victory over St. Francis (NY), but LIU combined a stifling defense with a streaky offense in posting a 72-41 win over Wagner.
 
Clark has scored in double figures in seven of Wagner's eight games this season. The only contest that Clark was held to single digits in came at BIG EAST member St. John's on Nov. 22 when she was had seven points to go along with seven rebounds. Clark is the team-leader scoring at 15.0 points per game while shooting a robust 55 percent (48-of-88) from the floor. She is also the team's leading rebounder at 7.4 boards per game.
 
With the loss, the Seahawks fall to 2-6 on the season, 1-1 in NEC play while the Blackbirds, who were picked to finish third in the NEC Preseason Poll, improve to 6-2 overall, 1-1 in the conference.
 
Wagner got off to a slow start offensively as the Seahawks misfired on their first three shots while committing four turnovers, including two shot-clock violations, in falling behind 10-0 at the outset.  After Seahawk senior forward Brittney Thorpe (Newport News, VA/ Heritage) put the Seahawks on the board on a driving layup off an assist by redshirt junior guard Kanifa Hicks (Paterson, NJ/ Passaic Tech) with 13:28 left in the half, LIU went on an 8-0 binge, widening the lead to 18-2 on a Tamika Guz layup with 11:12 to go in the half. It didn't help matters for the Seahawks that Clark was whistled for two fouls in the first six minutes of the game and then picked up her third personal at the 5:11 mark of the opening half.
 
The rest of the half was played on near-even terms as Wagner outscored LIU 12-11 over the final 11 minutes of the half as the Blackbirds took a 29-14 halftime edge.
 
The Blackbirds opened the second half with a 16-4 run in building a commanding a commanding 25-point lead at 45-20 with 13:37 remaining. LIU's aggressive defense, which featured a steady diet of full-court pressure, frustrated the Seahawks into committing a season-high 28 turnovers. The Blackbirds turned many of those turnovers into points as LIU held a sizeable 28-10 advantage in points off turnovers. After shooting just 38 percent from the field in the first half, the Blackbirds heated up in the second stanza shooting at a 53 percent clip in the second half in pulling away for the win.
 
Krystal Wells led three players in double figures with 16 points for LIU while Ashley Palmer and Ebony Davis added 14 and 10 points, respectively. Like LIU, Wagner shot better in the second half, as the Seahawks hit 44 percent of their shots in half number two after connecting on just 30 percent in the opening half.
 
Clark was the lone Seahawk in double figures while freshman point guard Jacqui Thompson (Southampton, PA/ St. Basil Academy) added nine points. The hard-charging 5-3 Thompson has now scored eight or more points in four of the first eight games of her college career. Junior guard Veronick Fournier (Gatineau, Quebec/ Montmorency), Hicks and Thorpe finished with four points apiece.

Clark, Thompson, Fournier, Hicks and Thorpe were the only five Seahawks to hit the scoring column as junior starting forwards Marie-Laurence Archambault (Montreal, Quebec. Montmorency) and Chanez Robinson (Newark, NJ/ Shabazz) were held scoreless. For Archambault, it marked just the third time in her 67-game career that she did not score as she was held scoreless twice during her freshman season back in 2009-10. For Robinson, a first-year Seahawk who transferred from Northeastern University, it marked the first scoreless outing of her eight-game Seahawk career.
 
NOTES -Tonight's game marked the 71st meeting between the local rivals and LIU now hold a 40-31 lead in the all-time series. The Blackbirds have won the last five meetings in the series. The last Wagner win over LIU came on Feb. 14, 2009 when the Seahawks earned a 53-51 victory in Brooklyn.