EWING, N.J. – The New Jersey City University men's basketball team took down The College of New Jersey on the Lions' home court in Ewing, N.J., on Saturday afternoon, Dec. 11. Today's 81-72 win jumped NJCU above .500 in New Jersey Athletic Conference (NJAC) play standings, while TCNJ fell under that mark.
Jersey City (6-5, 3-2 NJAC) trailed the home team (5-4, 2-3 NJAC) throughout the first half, but made the exciting comeback in the second. Points were exchanged up-and-down the court up until the teams were tied 48-48. In the final 10 minutes, NJCU started to pull away to victory.
Sophomore Hakeem Wilson (Newark, N.J./North Star Academy) scored a game- and career-high 18 points, closely followed by senior captain Denzel Banks (Newark, NJ/East Orange Campus) who scored 17 — Banks is now just 16 points short of 1,000 for his career. Senior Kayton Darley (North Bergen, N.J./North Bergen) and sophomore Ryan Savoy (Lakewood, N.J./Lakewood) finished the game with 14 and 13 points, respectively. Jersey City, as a team, scored 29 points off of TCNJ turnovers.
Banks took the lead with the team-high of nine rebounds, followed by Savoy with seven, Darley with five and Wilson with four. Senior captain Jason Battle (Jersey City, N.J./Roselle Catholic), Wilson and Darley all tallied two steals in tonight's contest – Savoy held the game-high total of three blocks.
What's Next:
Jersey City hosts Yeshiva University, the #1 ranked team in all of NCAA Division III — this will be the second Nationally ranked #1 team NJCU has faced this season. The Gothic Knights tip-off against the Maccabees at the John J. Moore Athletics & Fitness Center (JMAC) on Wednesday night, Dec. 15, at 7:00 p.m. Watch all the action live on GothicVision.
