Montclair, NJ – Senior guard John Snow scored 30 points, including the 1,000
th of his career as Rutgers-Newark used an early push in the second half and held off Montclair State late for a 69-60 win at the Panzer Athletic Center on Wednesday evening.
Senior Jordan McDaniel added 23 points and eight rebounds as the Scarlet Raiders (13-5, 8-3 NJAC) won for the fifth time in their last six contests. Rutgers-Newark also completed a sweep of the season series with MSU as it extending its winning streak against the Red Hawks to 10 games. The Scarlet Raiders won the first contest, 90-87 in overtime at the Golden Dome in early December.
Junior guard
SHAUN RUSSELL and senior guard
AARON WILLIAMS had 13 and 11 points, respectively for Montclair which had its three-game winning streak snapped. The Red Hawks fell back to the .500 mark at 9-9 overall, 5-6 in the NJAC.
MSU grabbed an early five-point lead before an 11-2 run by Rutgers-Newark put the visitors in front as Snow scored on a layup with 11:28 left in the opening period. The teams would bounce the lead back and forth to each other with four additional ties in the mix until MSU grabbed a 34-33 advantage with :41 left on a free throw by
JARRETT BOGUS. McDaniel answered at the other end with two foul shots as Rutgers-Newark led 35-34 at the break.
The Scarlet Raiders opened the second half with an 11-5 run to take a double-digit lead at 49-39 on David Azoroh's layup with 14:18 remaining. Snow's layup four minutes later made the score 53-43 however MSU cut the lead to six when
BRANDON CHANNER scored on a layup with 8:37 to play for a 55-49 Rutgers-Newark lead.
Russell's three-point play with just over six minutes left trimmed the lead to 57-54 but Snow countered with two free throws and later four more, the last two coming with 1:46 left for a 63-57 lead.
ERICK LOFTEN-HARRIS drained a long three-pointer 14 seconds later cutting the deficit to three and the Red Hawks had a chance to pull closer as Williams stole the inbounds. But a misplayed layup proved costly and Rutgers-Newark made that pay at Snow connected twice at the line with 38 ticks extending the lead to 65-60.
After a miss by the Red Hawks, Snow made one foul shot with 25 seconds and another with 17 to all but end the game. Vik Singh added the final two from the line.
Snow, who was 10-of-13 from the line in the contest, added five rebounds.
Channer had eight points and a game-high 11 rebounds for Montclair State, which outrebounded the Raiders, 40-32 including 19-7 on the offensive glass. Montclair State shot just 33 percent (19-of-58) from the field compared to 46 percent by Rutgers-Newark (21-of-45).
Montclair State returns to action on Saturday, January 30 hosting Ramapo at 1:00 pm. The Red Hawks will look to avenge an 85-81 loss in Mahwah back in December.
