Women’s Basketball: Rutgers over Villanova 63-54
Saturday, January 26, 2008
PISCATAWAY, N.J. – Sophomore guard Epiphanny Prince (Brooklyn, N.Y.) had 19 points, 14 of those in the first half, to lead No. 5/5 Rutgers to a 63-54 win over Villanova on Saturday afternoon at the Louis Brown Athletic Center. Junior Kia Vaughn (Bronx, N.Y.) and senior Matee Ajavon (Newark, N.J.) added 16 and 14 points, respectively.
Vaughn paced the team, along with senior Essence Carson (Paterson, N.J.), with eight rebounds each. Ajavon had a season-high nine assists.
The Scarlet Knights (17-2, 7-0 BIG EAST) closed the contest on an 11-5 run over the final 5:35 of play to take the victory, its 12th straight.
"Personally, these games always give me a headache," head coach C. Vivian Stringer noted of her 794th victory. "You see very quickly who can play and who can't. Villanova is very smart and they read defenses very well. He (Villanova head coach Harry Perretta) doesn't let you make a mistake. It was a good win."
Villanova (12-8, 2-5), trailing by six at the break, took a 38-37 lead with 13:53 remaining on a jumper by Laura Kurz. The advantage would be the last for the Wildcats as Ajavon responded with seven straight points to move RU ahead, 44-38. Villanova closed to three on four different occasions, lastly with 6:00 to play. A pair of three's by Ajavon and Prince and a 10-footer by Carson would make it 60-49 with 3:10 showing.
Rutgers shot 50.9 percent from the floor while Villanova was at a 48.9 percent clip, becoming the 27th straight opponent to shoot below 50 percent. The Wildcats were 10-of-20 from behind the arc, while the Scarlet Knights connected on 5-of-11 from downtown.
Trailing 8-6 after a three-pointer by Wildcats guard Maria Getty, Rutgers used an 11-2 surge to take a 17-10 advantage at the 11:49 mark of the first half. Vaughn scored six during the drive and Prince capped it with a triple from the far side. The see-saw battle was underway. RU went ahead 20-15 on another trifecta by Prince with 9:49 to go in the first only to see 'Nova respond with a flurry of three's. VU's Lisa Karcic gave the visitors a 22-21 lead on 3-pointer - the fourth of the game - with 6:40 on the clock.
Prince scored six straight - the first in traffic, the second a steal and subsequent lay-up and finally an up-and-under left-side drive – to push RU ahead by five. Junior Heather Zurich capped the 8-0 run with a mid-range jumper for a 29-22 edge.
Yet another three-pointer by the nation's top three-point team closed the deficit to four before Rutgers stretched it to six-point game (33-27) at the break.
For the second straight game, Rutgers had fewer than 10 turnovers in a game (9).
The Scarlet Knights are next in action on Tuesday, Jan. 28 when they travel to West Virginia. Five of the next six opponents are either ranked at the present or have been ranked at some point this season.
"In this five-game stretch coming up, this is make or break time," Stringer said after the game. "We could lose any of those; it's certainly possible to win all of those. We were confident going into this game, so I'm glad that we won."