Brooklyn, NY – The Wagner women's basketball team overcame a 14-point first-half deficit to take a seven-point third-quarter lead before LIU Brooklyn rallied for a 71-66 win despite a 37-point outing by the nation's leading scorer, Jasmine Nwajei (Rockaway Park, NY/Murry Bergtraum).
 
With the loss, the injury-riddled Seahawks conclude the 2015-16 season with an overall record of 5-24, 3-15 in Northeast Conference (NEC) play. The Blackbirds will enter the NEC Tournament with a league mark of 7-11 and an overall record of 9-20.
 
Nwajei's 37-point outing marked the 15^th time this season she has hit the 30-point mark this season, and the 25^th time in her career that she has done so. The junior guard also eclipsed the 40-point mark five times on the year, and the 50-point mark on two occasions, highlighted by a school and NEC-record 53-point effort vs. Sacred Heart (1/16).
 
The New York City guard finishes the season with an NEC and school single-season scoring average of 29.0 ppg., including a conference-record 33.6 average in NEC play. For the season, Nwajei poured in an NEC single-season record 841 points, breaking the previous mark of 815 set by Sade Logan of Robert Morris in 2008. The first junior in NEC history to break the 2,000-point scoring mark, Nwajei's school-record career point total is up to 2,076 points, which ranks fifth on the NEC all-time list.

In addition to her 37-point performance this evening, Nwajei added eight assists, six rebounds and five steals while playing the entire 40 minutes. 
 
Wagner dug itself out of an early 23-9 first-quarter deficit by outscoring the Blackbirds 22-14 the rest of the half in narrowing the gap to 37-31 at halftime. The Seahawks then opened the second half on a 13-0 run, as part of a 15-2 tear, in summoning a 46-39 lead with 4:36 left in the third quarter.
 
Sophomore forward Sofia Roma (Richmond Hill, NY/Nazareth Regional), the NEC's leading rebounde at 11.2 caroms per game (in NEC games), began the Seahawk surge with a layup before Nwajei went on to score the next 11 points to complete the 13-0 run. In the 15-2 spree, Nwajei was responsible for 13 consecutive Wagner points, nine coming via a trio of three-point baskets.
 
Shanovia Dove stemmed the tide for LIU with a three-pointer with 3:34 left in the third to make 46-42, whichkick-started a 12-4 Blackbird burst that gave the home team a 54-50 lead entering the fourth. The final quarter was a frenzied, hotly-contested 10 minutes in which Wagner nearly came away with the road win.
 
Trailing 56-50, the Seahawks went on an 8-2 run, capped by a pair of Nwajei free throws, to tie the score at 58-58 with 5:07 to play. After the Blackbirds took a 63-60 lead with 3:15 left following a layup by Ashley Brown, Nwajei answered with a three-ball at the 2:55 mark to forge the game's fourth and final tie at 63-63.
 
After LIU went ahead 67-64, Nwajei made it a one-point game with a layup at the 17-second mark to draw the Seahawks to within one at 67-66. After Dove made two free throws with 10 seconds left to make it 69-66, Nwajei's potential game-tying three-pointer with two seconds to go would not fall. The Blackbirds got the rebound and Brianna Farris hit a pair from the line to fashion the final score at 71-66.
 
Freshman guard Julia McClure (Secaucus, NJ/Secaucus), in the first start of her career, continued her fine form of late, hitting for 11 points on 4-of-8 shooting, including a 3-of-5 effort from beyond the arc. Junior forward Taylor Butigian (Rockaway Park, NY/Christ the King) came off the bench to supply seven points on 3-of-4 shooting in a productive 32-minute stint before fouling out while Roma added six points and a game-high 11 rebounds.
 
Dove led three Blackbirds in double figures with 20 while Shanice Vaughan and Farris added 13 and 11 points, respectively.


 


















































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