Senior Brittany Ray led all scorers with 20 points - the 29th double-digit effort of her career.
Tom Ciszek/NJSportsPhoto
April Sykes had 12 points - all in the first half.
Tom Ciszek/NJSportsPhoto
PISCATAWAY, N.J. (November 17, 2009) – Senior guard Brittany Ray (Bronx, N.Y.) registered 20 points to lead all scorers as Rutgers recorded an 85-49 victory over Kean University on Tuesday evening at the Louis Brown Athletic Center.
Sophomore guard April Sykes (Starkville, Miss.) had 12 points–all in the first half-and classmate Khadijah Rushdan (Wilmington, Del.) tallied 11. Senior forward Myia McCurdy (Cincinnati, Ohio) added nine points as the Scarlet Knights recorded their first win of the season.
Naimah Clemons paced the Cougars (0-1) with 18 points.
Kean, a Division III school located in Union, N.J., led by as many as four points in the first half. The Cougars went ahead 17-13 following a three-pointer by Melissa Beyruti with 14:05 on the clock. Rutgers responded scoring the next 13 straight points.
Freshman Erica Wheeler (Miami, Fla.) capped the run, by pushing the ball out of the hands of Beyruti and over to teammate Nikki Speed (Pasadena, Calif.), who passed ahead to Wheeler down court for the fast-break lay-up and a 26-17 lead.
Kean closed to six points before the Scarlet Knights used another run to increase the lead to double-digits for good. Rutgers closed out the first half on a 19-5 tear with five points each coming from Ray and Speed to lead 45-25 at intermission.
After Kean scored on two of its first four possessions of the second half, Rutgers ripped off 13 straight points closed on a steal and subsequent lay-in by McCurdy to roar to a 66-29 advantage with 10:13 to play.
The Scarlet Knights shot 49.2 percent (29-of-59) in the contest, 54.2 percent in the second half. Rutgers hit for 40 percent of its three-point opportunities (6-of-15) –largely behind the shooting of Ray who went 4-of-5 from behind the arc.
Rutgers entertains Boston College on Thursday, Nov. 19. It is the first meeting between the former BIG EAST rivals since Feb. 22, 2005. Game time is set for 7:30 p.m. and the contest will be broadcast on Verizon FiOS1.
Postgame Notes
-The Scarlet Knights now lead the all-time series with the Cougars, 6-1. RU continues its 13-game win streak against New Jersey schools, dating back to 2002.
- Senior Rashidat Junaid played in her 100th game as a Scarlet Knight, notching seven points with five rebounds and was a perfect 2-for-2 from the field.
-Down 17-13 with 13 minutes to go in the first half, Rutgers went on a 22-3 run over the next 7:31, and never relinquished the lead again. RU also went on a 10-0 run to end the half
-Senior Brittany Ray led all scorers with 20 points – the 29th double-digit effort of her career. The performance marked the sixth time in the last seven games that Ray scored 12-or-more. Tonight was also the tenth time Ray has led Rutgers in scoring and her fifth career game with 20-plus points.
-Ray shot 80 percent from three-point range. She made four on the night, giving her 127 for her career and inching her closer to the No. 5 position all-time at RU (Epiphanny Prince with 131).
-All ten Scarlet Knights scored on the night.
-The RU bench accounted 31 points – the most since last year versus Princeton (Nov. 8, 2008).
-Sophomore Nikki Speed topped her career high in assists with six. Her previous high came against Louisville (March 8, 2009), where she dished out four.
-Rutgers held Kean to a 27.8 field goal percentage, while the Scarlet Knights shot 49.2 percent from the field.
