Njie Powers Roosevelt To Win Over CCSJ

CHICAGO – Sangolay Njie went on his own personal 7-0 run to help Roosevelt race to a 93-74 win over Calumet St. Joseph in a Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference contest on Saturday afternoon at the Goodman Center.

The Crimson Wave were keeping pace with the Lakers (9-1, 3-0 CCAC) for the first 12 minutes of the game before Njie decided to take over himself. He drove the lane perfectly for an easy layup then came down on the next possession to drain a 3-pointer. After a Julio Montes II steal, the outlet pass found Forte Prater who left a perfect lob pass for Njie's dunk, forcing a timeout from Calumet St. Joseph as Roosevelt extended the lead out to eight points.

That one spurt was all the momentum the Lakers would need to seize control of the game as they quickly pushed the lead out to 17 with 3:22 left in the half. Calumet St. Joseph's best push in the rest of the first half only cut the deficit to 11, and the Crimson Wave never got to within single digits in the second half.

Roosevelt was particularly efficient on offense against the Crimson Wave by shooting 57.1 percent from the field, including 13 of 23 from behind the arc. The Lakers didn't rely too heavily on creating points off turnovers, scoring 18 off 12 takeaways, and finished with just eight second chance points. Instead, they limited Calumet St. Joseph to 38 percent shooting in the second half as the lead grew to as much as 26 before both teams brought on reserves.

Montes led the Lakers with 15 first-half points and Njie added 11, but Maurice Commander chipped in 12 while draining all three of his 3-point attempts and a trio of free throws after getting fouled on a 3-pointer. Commander finished with 20 points in the game, running his streak to three straight games with at least 20 points while connecting on 5 of 6 from long range. Njie led Roosevelt with 24 points in the game, including an impressive 4 of 5 from 3-point range, and Montes finished at 19 points with six assists.

Prater was an unheralded star in the second half with 13 points while making six of his seven shots over the final 20 minutes. The guard finished with a near triple-double of 17 points, eight rebounds and seven assists. Chinedum Okpukpara made his season debut for Roosevelt and scored six points with a pair of dunks and also grabbed four rebounds.

Roosevelt has a week to prepare for its biggest game of the season thus far when it travels to Bourbonnais next Saturday for a CCAC battle against No. 13 Olivet Nazarene at 3 p.m.