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Game Notes I Wagner I LIU Brooklyn

Staten Island, NY - The Wagner women's basketball team looks to improve to 2-1 in the Northeast Conference (NEC) when the Seahawks host LIU Brooklyn on Saturday, January 10 at 1:00 p.m. in the first game of a doubleheader that will be streamed live on ESPN 3 with the Seahawk and Blackbird men's teams to meet at 4:00 p.m. in a game that will as be carried live on ESPN 3.

The Seahawks saw their three-game winning streak come to a close on Monday night when they dropped a 60-58 decision to Mount St. Mary's on 10-foot jumper by Jacqueline Brewer in the waning seconds. Prior to Monday, Wagner had posted consecutive wins over Stony Brook (76-70 on 12/21), Columbia (97-86 on 12/30) and at Saint Francis U in the NEC opener (76-60 on 1/3).

Wagner, which is 3-10 overall and 1-1 in NEC play, has faced a demanding non-conference schedule that has included a pair of ranked foes in 2014 NCAA Final Four participant Maryland, and 2014 WNIT Champion Rutgers, in addition to VCU, St. John's and Penn State.

Sophomore guard Jasmine Nwajei (Rockaway Park, NY/Murry Bergtraum) led all scorers with 21 points despite an off-shooting night while junior guard Jordyn Peck (Shaker Heights, OH/Shaker Heights) added 10. Freshman guard Tanasia Russell (Vineland, NJ/Vineland) came within one point of her career high of 10 while sophomore guard Lyndsay Rowe (South River, NJ.St. John Vianney) and freshman center Sofia Roma (Richmond Hill, NY/Nazareth Regional) added seven points apiece.

Brewer, a 5-10 lefthander, and junior center Sarafina Arthur-Williams paced the Mount with 13 points apiece with Arthur-Williams adding a game-high 11 rebounds in posting the double-double.
 
NWAJEI COLLECTS THREE MORE HONORS, INCLUDING COLLEGE SPORTS MADNESS MID-MAJOR PLAYER OF THE WEEK
The accolades continue to stream in for Wagner's high-scoring sophomore guard Jasmine Nwajei (Rockaway Park, NY/Murry Bergtraum), as she's been named the College Sports Madness Mid-Major Player of the Week and the Corvias ECAC Division I Metro/Upstate Co-Player of the Week, while copping her third consecutive Northeast Conference (NEC) Player of the Week honor.

Since Christmas, the New York City guard, who shares this week's ECAC honor with Iona's Joy Adams has played more minutes (118) and scored more points (78) than any other NEC player. She averaged 26.0 points, 9.7 rebounds, 5.0 steals and 4.7 assists per contest during a three-game span that began with a double-digit victory over Ivy League member Columbia. For the season, Nwajei is averaging 22.5 points per game (Tied-11th Nationally: NCAA.com), 6.6 rebounds, 3.8 assists and 3.0 steals.

In her final appearance in 2014, Nwajei erupted for one of the nation's nine 40-point performances as the Seahawks closed out the non-conference portion of their schedule. In powering the Seahawks to a 97-86 win over Columbia, the New York City product poured in 40 points (on 12-of-22 shooting and 13-of-15 accuracy from the free throw line) while logging 10 rebounds, five assists and five steals.

Her 40-point performance vs. Columbia is the second-highest single-game performance in school history, just three points behind the 43 points scored by Seahawk Hall of Fame member Stephanie Samuels at Fairleigh Dickinson on February 18, 1986. The 40-point outburst also set a record for the most points ever scored in a game at the Spiro Center. In addition, this was the top single-game performance by an NEC player this season, bettering the 39-point effort that Nwajei delivered at Vermont (12/14).

Prior to the Columbia win, Nwajei tossed in 28 points, 26 in the second half, in guiding the Green & White to a 76-70 win over Stony Brook after two early fouls limited her to two points in five minutes of first-half action.

Nwajei played all 40 minutes in Wagner's NEC opener, a 76-60 triumph over Saint Francis U (1/3), notching her second consecutive double-double. The 5-foot-8 do-it-all guard produced 17, points, 12 rebounds, seven assists and six steals while leading the Seahawks to their third win in a row.  She then closed out the three-game sample by contributing 21 points, seven rebounds and four steals in a two-point loss to Mount St. Mary's (1/5), eclipsing the 20-point mark for the fifth time in six games when her lay-up tied the score at 58-58 with nine seconds remaining
 
.NWAJEI'S TOP 5 CAREER SCORING DAYS
1. 40 - vs. Columbia...............12/30/14
2. 39 - at Vermont.................12/14/14
3. 32 - at VCU........................ 11/14/14
4. 32 - vs. Yale....................... 12/17/14
5.  29 - vs. FDU...................... 02/17/14
 
Top Scoring Games in Seahawk History
1.   Stephanie Samuels vs. FDU, 2-18-86................ 43
2.   Jasmine Nwajei vs. Columbia, 12-30-14........ 40
3.   Jasmine Nwajei at Vermont, 12-14-14...... ......39
4.   Meredith Kerns vs. Drexel, 11-28-01................. .34
      Susan Moffat vs. Cleveland St., 12-28-95.........34
      Stephanie Samuels at Seton Hall, 1-20-86......34
      Tricia Hoff vs. Jersey City State, 2-16-78.......... 34
8.   Joy Gallagher vs. Boston U., 12-30-03...............33
      Jenny Frazier vs. New Hampshire, 12-3-95.......33
      Kristee Chaplin at FDU, 1-26-95....................... . 33
      Jenny Frazier at FDU, 2-16-94.......................... .  33
      Stephanie Samuels at LIU, 1-7-86.....................  33
      Stephanie Samuels at Monmouth, 1-5-85........33
      Tricia Hoff vs. Mercy, 2-18-78........................ ..  33
 
PECK REACHES 1,000-POINT MARK DURING CAREER-HIGH 31-POINT OUTING VS. COLUMBIA
Junior guard Jordyn Peck (Shaker Heights, OH/Shaker Heights) became the 24th player in Wagner women's basketball history to reach the 1,000-point mark when she made the first of two free throws during the first half of the Seahawks' 97-86 win over Columbia (12/30), en route to a career-high 31-point outing. Peck, who enters the LIU Brooklyn game in 21^st place all time with 1,051 career points, connected on 8-of-18 shots, including 5-of-7 from three-point range, and 10-of-11 from the charity stripe, vs. .the Lions. The 31-point outburst bettered her previous career high of 30 which the crafty lefthander tallied vs. Central Connecticut (1/11/14).
 
ALL-TIME SERIES HISTORY
The Seahawks and Blackbirds will be meeting for the 80th time this afternoon and Wagner leads the "Battle of the Boroughs" rivalry 41-38.  The teams split their two meetings last season with each holding serve on its respective home court.
 
SEAHAWKS LOOK TO BUILD ON LAST SEASON'S 8-10 NEC MARK, APPEARANCE IN CONFERENCE TOURNAMENT
The  NEC's most improved team last season, Wagner closed the 2013-2014 campaign with an overall mark of 9-21, 8-10 in league play second-year head coach Lisa Cermignano, after going 3-26 the previous season with a conference record of 2-16.

PLAYING TOUGH NON-CONFERENCE SCHEDULE IS THE CERMIGNANO WAY
Wagner opened the 2014-15 season with a two-game road swing, beginning with a matchup at VCU of the Atlantic 10 (11/14) followed by a contest at No. 8 Maryland (11/16). The Seahawks' home opener was against No. 17 Rutgers (L 81-53). Led by Hall of Fame head coach C. Vivian Stringer, the 2014 WNIT Champions and the first Big 10 opponent to ever play at the Spiro Sports Center. The demanding non-conference schedule continued with a Nov. 30 game at Big East member St. John's (L 71-49). Third-year head coach Lisa Cermignano believes that last season's tough non-conference schedule helped prepare her team for NEC play and was a big reason for the Seahawks' six-game league improvement. After playing a non-league schedule that included heavyweights Kentucky, Rutgers, VCU and Pittsburgh, the Green & White went 8-10 in the NEC and qualified for the league tournament for the first time since 2010.
 
CERMIGNANO ON THE NEC
"The conference is wide open this year," Lisa Cermignano said. "The league graduated two major players, one at Saint Francis U (Alli Williams ) and the other at Robert Morris (Artemis Spanou ), there's not a powerhouse back that's won the last couple of years consistently, and we do have a lot of returners. As I said, we're still very young but the sky's the limit. We're really just building for the next couple of years."

SUPERLATIVES, MILESTONES FROM 97-86 WIN OVER COLUMBIA
*97 Points Second-Most in School History
The 97 points scored by Wagner today ties for the second-highest in school history, behind the school-record 99 vs. Mercy (1/22/91) and equals the 97 tallied vs. LIU Brooklyn on January 7, 1986. The 97-point outburst also set a Spiro Sports Center record, eclipsing the 82 points that Wagner recorded on two occasions, most recently on November 18, 2008 vs. NJIT.

*Most Combined Points in Spiro Center History
The 183 points that Wagner and Columbia combined for is a Spiro Center record, bettering the 164 combined points the Seahawks and Saint Francis U combined for in an 88-76 Red Flash win on March 1, 1999 which came in an NEC Tournament game.
 
*Nwajei's 40-Point Outburst No. 2 in School History
Jasmine Nwajei's 40-point performance vs. Columbia is the second-highest single-game performance in school history, just three points behind the 43 points scored by Seahawk Hall of Fame member Stephanie Samuels at  Fairleigh Dickinson (FDU) on February 18, 1986. Today's 40-point outburst by Nwajei also set a record for the most points ever scored in a game at the Spiro Center. The previous Spiro Center single-game scoring mark of 38 points was set by Quinnipiac's Ashlee Kelly (vs. FDU in NEC Tournament, 3/5/04)  and matched by Fairleigh Dickinson's Mariyah Laury in a regular season game vs. Wagner (2/7/11).
 
*Nwajei's 40-Point Game Sets Spiro Center Record for a Wagner Player
The 40 points scored by Jasmine Nwajei sets a Spiro Center  single-game record by a Wagner player, as the previous high game by a Seahawk player at Spiro was the 34 scored by Meredith Kerns vs. Drexel (11/28/01).
 
*Nwajei's Stat Line
Jasmine Nwajei shot 12-of-22 from the floor, including a 3-of-7 effort from three-point range, 13-of-15 from the line while pulling down 10 rebounds, dishing out five assists and coming up with five steals. The 15 free throws attempted and 13 made are both career highs.
 
*Nwajei's Seventh Career Double-Double, Second of Season
For the 5-8 New York City guard, the 40-point, 10-rebound effort marked the seventh double-double of her career and second of the season.
 
*Plethora of Season Highs
In the win over Columbia, Wagner set season highs in points (97), three-pointers made (9), three-point percentage (.556, 10-of-18), free throws made (31), attempted (35) and free throw percentage (.886), while tying for season highs in assists (12) and steals (11).
 
Seahawks Picked 4th In NEC Poll, Jasmine Nwajei Named To Preseason All-NEC Team
Brooklyn, NY (Oct. 21)– The Wagner women's basketball team, last season's most-improved Northeast Conference (NEC) squad, was picked fourth in the 2014-2015 Preseason Poll while sophomore guard Jasmine Nwajei (Rockaway Park, NY/Murry Bergtraum) was named to the Preseason All-NEC Team, in a vote of the league's head coaches and announced today at NEC Social Media Day held today at the Barclays Center.
 
Defending champion Robert Morris was picked first, garnering five of the 10 first-place votes. Sacred Heart was chosen second, with four first-place votes, St.  Francis Brooklyn was third, with Wagner fourth and Saint Francis U rounding out the top five.
 
Bryant was picked to finish sixth, Mount St. Mary's seventh, LIU Brooklyn checked in at eighth place with Central Connecticut and Fairleigh Dickinson finishing in a tie for ninth place.
 
 2014-2015 NEC Preseason Poll
1. Robert Morris (5)
2. Sacred Heart (4)
3. St. Francis Brooklyn (1)
4. Wagner
5. Saint Francis U
6. Bryant
7. Mount St. Mary's
8. LIU Brooklyn
9. (tie) Central Connecticut
    Fairleigh Dickinson
 
2014-15 Preseason All-NEC Women's Basketball
Senior               Jenniqua Bailey - Bryant
Senior               Alexa Hayward - Saint Francis U
Sophomore      Jasmine Nwajei - Wagner
Senior               Eilidh Simpson - St. Francis Brooklyn
Senior               Gabrielle Washington - Sacred Heart
 
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