EL PASO, Texas – Tyler Scaife went coast-to-coast and scores with 2 seconds left to give Rutgers the Women's National Invitation Tournament championship with a 56-54 win over UTEP on Saturday.
Rutgers (28-9), which led 30-16 at the half, withstood a furious second-half rally by UTEP (29-8), which tied it at 54 with 7 seconds to play on a putback by Chrishauna Parker.
Scaife took the inbounds pass and raced downcourt to score the winning points to quiet UTEP's home sellout crowd of 12,222.
Rutgers was led by Kahleah Cooper and Scaife, who each finished with 18 points, and Briyona Canty with 12. UTEP got 16 points from Kristine Vitola and 11 from Jenzel Nash.
UTEP trailed by 18 points early in the second half before runs of 8-2 and 12-2 helped it cut the Rutgers lead to 39-36. The Miners then took their first lead since 5-2 when Parker's bucket gave them a 50-48 lead with 5:06 to go.
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