NEWARK, N.J. --- The LIU Brooklyn women's basketball team snapped a two-game losing streak with an impressive 67-49 victory over the NJIT Highlanders Wednesday evening at the NJIT Wellness and Events Center.

Graduate transfer Denisha Petty-Evans led the Blackbirds (3-3) with a team-high 24 points in her second 20-point effort of the season. The New Jersey native made a career-best ten field goals (10-for-15) and helped LIU record its highest point total and largest margin of victory (18) of the year.

Sophomore Seneca Richards scored 12 points off the bench, reaching double figures for the first time this season after matching her career mark in three-pointers made with four. The last time Richards knocked down four shots from long distance was last season against Columbia on December 12.

Redshirt junior Drew Winter added nine points and game-highs of nine rebounds - matching her career high from the Yale season opener - and five assists. Senior forward DeAngelique Waithe had eight points and six rebounds and junior forward Destoni Willock netted season bests of four points and six rebounds.

After NJIT (0-7) took a 6-0 lead to open the game and ended the first quarter with an 11-10 edge, the Blackbirds settled into their offense by posting two of their five highest scoring quarters of the season in the second and third. The second quarter saw four LIU players - Petty Evans, Drew Winter, Waithe and freshman Jeydah Johnson - combine to score 20 points while the Blackbird defense held the Highlanders to only six from high scorer Taj Lewis. The 14-point cushion stands as the second-largest scoring margin in a quarter for the Blackbirds this season (17 points, 20-3 vs Saint Peter's, November 14).

LIU opened the second half with a 22-point third quarter, the third-highest tally of the year behind a pair of 23-point periods. Half of those points came in a game-changing 11-0 run in the first four minute of the half as Petty-Evans, Winter and Waithe took turns scoring on layups and Petty-Evans added a three-pointer to the mix.

Combined with Waithe and Winter scoring the final seven points of the second quarter, LIU used an 18-0 outburst to turn a single digit advantage into double-digit that dropped under 20 points for less than two minutes in the second half.

OTHER NOTES

• LIU also set new season highs in made field goals (27), points in a half (37, tied), field goal percentage (.450), three-point field goal percentage (.409), and blocks (7).
• Joining her New Jersey native teammates Petty-Evans and Winter in the homecoming box score, freshman Tia Montagne added four points (on LIU's four free throws) and three steals to the ledger.

NEXT UP
LIU will return home on Saturday, December 2 to take on No. 22/23 Michigan at Noon at the Steinberg Wellness Center.