NCAA Starting Five Players of Week
New York, NY – As the Wagner women's basketball team (2-8) prepares for tonight's 7:00 p.m. at Columbia (7-4), junior guard
Jasmine Nwajei (Rockaway Park, NY/Murry Bergtraum) was named one of this week's "NCAA.com Starting Five" Players of the Week along with Nina Davis of Baylor, Ariel Hearn of Memphis, Jessica Shepard of Nebraska, and Mississippi State's Victoria Vivians.
Nwajei started the week by pouring in a school-record 45 points at home vs. Stony Brook on Dec. 18. She followed that up by hitting the 30-point plateau for the third time this season, and 13th time in her career, in a 78-50 loss to Penn on Dec. 21.
The nation's No. 2 scorer last season at 24.8 points per game, Nwajei broke the previous school record of 43 points set by Stephanie Samuels nearly 30 years ago, on February 18, 1986, at Fairleigh Dickinson. The 5-8 New York City guard's previous career high was 40 vs. Columbia in 2014. Against Stony Brook, Nwajei shot 16-of-40 from the floor, including 5-of-11 marksmanship from three-point range, while going 8-of-12 from the free throw line. She committed just one turnover in the game while playing the entire 40 minutes.
A two-time Northeast Conference (NEC) Player of the Week this far this season, Nwajei, who improved her season scoring average to 21.2 points per game this season, also moved into seventh place on the Wagner all-time career scoring list, with 1,447 points, surpassing Hall of Famer Chris Anderson, whose 1,429 career points now rank eighth.
Wagner All-Time vs. ColumbiaThis marks the 25
th all-time meeting between the Seahawks and Lions and Wagner holds a 17-7 lead in the series. The Green & White won last year's meeting, knocking off the Lions 97-86 exactly one year ago, on December 30, 2014 on Staten Island.
Third Matchup vs, Ivy League This SeasonThis is the third and final matchup of the season for Wagner vs an Ivy League Opponent as the Seahawks are 0-2 in the previous two matchus. On December 6, Wagner dropped a 78-60 decision at Yale while last time out, on December 21, the Green & White lost 78-50 at Penn.
Wagner All-Time vs. the Ivy LeagueThe Seahawks own an all-time record of 23-24 vs. the Ivies. Wagner has played seven of the eight Ivy League teams all time, having faced Brown (0-1), Columbia (17-7), Harvard (1-2), Penn (0-1), Princeton (0-2), and Yale (0-3). The Ivy League team that Wagner has never faced is Dartmouth.
The CoachesWagner is led by fourth-year head coach
Lisa Cermignano, a former assistant at Illinois and Vanderbilt, who was born in Bryn Mawr, PA and raised in the Philadelphia suburb of Mantua Township, NJ. She was a prep star at Gloucester Catholic (NJ) where she scored 2,063 points in her high school career in setting the school's scoring record before moving on to a Hall of Fame playing career at George Washington, leading the Colonials to the Elite 8 of the 1997 NCAA Tournament. Columbia is under the direction Sheila Roux, who was was named interim head coach in September of 2015 after Stephanie Glance stepped down to become the Executive Director of the Kay Yow Cancer Fund. Roux joined the Columbia women's basketball program in April 2013 as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator and was named an Associate Head Coach for the 2014-15 season.
Last Time OutMichelle Nwokedi scored 20 points, while Sydney Stipanovich and Beth Brzozowski added 18 and 17, respectively, to offset a 30-point performance by junior guard
Jasmine Nwajei (Rockaway Park, NY/Murry Bergtraum) in leading the University of Pennsylvania to a 78-50 win over Wagner today at the famed Palestra. Nwajei, who was named
Co-Northeast Conference (NEC) Player of the Week earlier in the day, along with Fairleigh Dickinson's Erika Livermore, followed up her school-record 45-point outing on Friday vs. Stony Brook by hitting the 30-point plateau for the third time this season and 13
th time in her career. Penn built a 50-23 halftime lead with Nwajei scoring 21 of the Seahawks' points on 8-of-15 shooting. For the game, Nwajei shot an efficient 50 percent from the floor, connecting on 12-of-24, while adding four rebounds, four steals and an assist. For the second straight game, Nwajei was the lone Seahawk in double figures, however, as Wagner's next leading scorer was junior guard
Lyndsay Rowe (South River, NJ/St. John Vianney) with six. Sophomore forward
Samantha Sullivan (Manasquan, NJ/Manasquan) added four points while junior forward
Taylor Butigian (Rockaway, NY/Christ the King) and senior guard
Tessa Wade(Penn Valley, PA/Lower Merion) finished with three points apiece.
Follow Wagner Athletics on Facebook (facebook.com/WagnerAthletics), Twitter (@wagnerathletics), Instagram (@wagnerathletics) and YouTube (@WagnerSeahawks) for all the latest news and updates on the athletic department. Follow the women's basketball team on Twitter @WagSwagg_WBB for news and updates on the women's basketball program and @CERMIGNANO for news on the fourth-year coach. 
