Box Score (XML)

Box Score

Brooklyn, NY – The Wagner women's basketball team had a difficult shooting day at LIU Brooklyn and the Blackbirds placed six players in double figures, led by Cleandra Roberts' 14 points, snapping the Seahawks' three-game winning streak with a 77-51 Northeast Conference (NEC) win at the Steinberg Center.
 
Wagner saw its NEC record fall to 7-8 and now sport an overall mark of 8-18. Despite the loss, the Seahawks remain in seventh place and very much in the picture for a berth in next month's NEC Tournament which features the top eight finishers among the 10 conference teams.
 
Following today's win, LIU Brooklyn remains in eighth place with a league mark of 6-9 and an overall record of 8-18. With ninth-place Central Connecticut posting a 63-53 win over Sacred Heart, the Blue Devils kept their NEC Tourney hopes alive and are now 4-11 in conference.
 
Fairleigh Dickinson, in 10^th place at 1-14, has been eliminated from the conference tournament race thus Wagner, LIU Brooklyn and Central Connecticut are in competition for the final two spots.
 
Wagner and Central Connecticut will square off on Monday at 7:00 pm in New Britain, CT. With each NEC team having three regular season games left, any combination of one Seahawk win or one Blue Devil loss will clinch Wagner its first conference tournament appearance since 2009-2010.
 
Both teams got out to a sluggish offensive start today with the first points of the day coming at the 18:07 mark on a pair of free throws by LIU's Aleisha Myers. Letava Whippy hit a layup at 17:42, and then stole the ensuing inbounds pass, which resulted in her second straight layup and a 6-0 LIU lead at 17:30.
 
With Wagner trailing 8-5, the Blackbirds got hot from the field while the Green & White remained cold as LIU went on a 13-0 blitz, holding the Seahawks scoreless for more than nine minutes, in building a sizeable 21-5 edge with 6:39 remaining in the half. Wagner hit just two of its first 18 field goal attempts and scored just 16 first-half points on 26 percent shooting, which included an 0-of-9 mark from three-point range. It all added up to a 35-16 LIU lead at intermission.
 
The Seahawks' shooting improved in the second half, but so did LIU's, as the Blackbirds hit 52 percent of their shots from the field in the second stanza. The Blackbirds put together  another run early in the half, outscoring Wagner 13-3, in seizing their biggest lead of the day, 48-21 with 15:59 on the clock.
 
Wagner, which was led by six-time and reigning NEC Rookie of the Week Jasmine Nwajei's (Rockaway Park, NY/Murry Bergtraum) 16 points, never got closer than 17 points the rest of the way. Nwajei's backcourt running mate, sophomore Jordyn Peck (Shaker Heights, OH/Shaker Heights), added 15 points.