Box Score

NEWARK, NJ – Top-seeded Rutgers-Newark turned back a second half surge by Lehman College to post a 69-59 win in the opening round of the ECAC Metro D-III Women's Basketball Championship Tournament in The Golden Dome Arena.

2012 ECAC Metro D-III Women's Basketball Championship Bracket

The victory sends the Scarlet Raiders (19-8) into Saturday's semifinal round against Brooklyn College (22-7), a 52-51 winner over Old Westbury (18-9) earlier tonight.  Tipoff is set for 6 p.m.

Rutgers-Newark hosts the final two rounds of the championship with Richard Stockton (16-12) squaring off against Stevens (14-13) in the 8 p.m. nightcap on Saturday.  The championship game will be played at 7 p.m. on Sunday.

Senior guard Kendra Johnson poured in a game-high 28 points while making a career-high eight steals and dishing off six assists to lead the Raiders who lost an 18-point second-half lead to the stubborn Lightning (15-13).

Johnson had six steals and 17 points in the first half as Rutgers-Newark dominated play by scoring 14 points off of 13 Lehman turnovers.  But after a layup by freshman forward Jade Howard gave the Raiders their biggest lead of the night at 41-23 with less than two minutes gone in the second half, the Lightning came alive.

Seniors Amanda De La Cruz, Leslie Mencia and Paul Robinson combined for 23 points as Lehman went on a 27-9 run.  A De La Cruz jumper with 6:07 left knotted the score at 50-50, but the Lightning never took the lead.

Sophomore guard Jasmine Daniels, who finished with 11 points and 11 rebounds, had a layup and a pair of free throws to fuel the decisive 9-0 spurt which put the Raiders in control for good at 59-50 with 2:47 left.  Lehman got no closer than seven points on a jumper by De La Cruz with 35 seconds left.

The balanced Raiders got nine points, eight rebounds, four steals and three assists from senior forward Lori Nieves and eight points and nine rebounds from freshman forward Arianna Williams. 

Senior guard Brittany Smith dished off six assists to help fill the void left by the absence of sophomore point guard ShaQuanna Marshall who suffered a knee injury in a loss to William Paterson in the New Jersey Athletic Conference semifinals on February 21.

De La Cruz scored 13 of her team-high 18 points in the second half while grabbing seven rebounds and dishing off a game-high seven assists.  Robinson netted 14 points to go along with four rebounds, three assists and two steals while Mencia finished with a dozen points and eight rebounds.

It marks the first time that Rutgers-Newark has advanced beyond the first round of the ECAC Metro playoffs in six tries under 11th-year head coach Kevin Morris.  Top seeded for the second year in a row in the 8-team affair, the Raiders were bumped out in the opening round last season.

The win gives the Raiders back-to-back 19 victory seasons - a high water mark for the Morris era which has produced seven winning seasons in the last eight years.