Ewing, NJ… The College of New Jersey men’s basketball team recorded a 56-53 win over William Paterson University on Wednesday night in Packer Hall in a New Jersey Athletic Conference contest. TCNJ is now 11-8 overall and 4-3 in the NJAC, while WPU drops to 12-7 overall and 3-4 in the league.

               TCNJ led 30-26 at the half after both teams got off to a slow start. It was 17:45 before any team scored and the Pioneers took a brief 3-0 lead before TCNJ went on a 17-3 run and led 17-3 with 10:02 left in the first half. WPU fought back and went on their own 12-4 run to pull within two, 49-47 TCNJ at 7:15 before taking a 50-49 lead at 6:28.  In the last three and a half minutes, the two teams exchanged fouls, free throws and three-pointers and in the final seconds of the game a missed three-point basket by senior forward Luis Martinez (Passaic, NJ/Clifton) missed that would have sent the game to overtime.

               TCNJ’s junior forward Mark Aziz (Hackettstown, NJ/West Morris) led all TCNJ players with his 16 points, while senior guard Brian Halligan (Delran, NJ/Delran) added 11 points. Junior guard Corey Gilmore (South Plainfield, NJ/South Plainfield) finished with 10 points as well as the Lions finished the night with a 40.5% field goal percentage (17-42).

               WPU’s junior guard Da-Shawn Dwight (Newark, NJ/Bloomfield Tech) led all players with 19 points and was the only Pioneer player in double digits on the night as TCNJ forced 20 WPU turnovers, while committing 18 themselves.               

TCNJ returns to action on January 27 when they travel to Rutgers University-Newark for a NJAC match-up at 7:30 p.m., while William Paterson University will host conference rival, Kean also on January 27 at 1:00 p.m.