Box Score Pictured Above: Seahawk freshman Jasmine Nwajei had a day to remember vs. No. 7 Kentucky (photo by Hilton Flores/Staten Island Advance)

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Staten Island, NY - Freshman guard Jasmine Nwajei (Rockaway Park, NY/Murry Bergtraum) scored the game's first five points en route to a 19-point effort and the young, feisty and new-look Seahawks brought the fight to Kentucky before the nation's seventh-ranked team eventually pulled away for a 96-57 win in front a spirited crowd of 1,847 at the Spiro Sports Center.

While this marked the season opener in year two of the Lisa Cermignano era at Wagner, the Wildcats were coming off of a 75-61 victory at Marist on Friday night in the first game of their two-game East Coast swing.
 
Nwajei 's first career points came on a driving layup 18 seconds into the contest  and after she drained her first career three-pointer at the 18:19 mark, the Seahawks found themselves with a 5-0 lead over their counterparts from the Southeastern Conference.  Sophomore guard Jordyn Peck (Shaker Heights, OH/Shaker Heights) then got into the act with a layup at 17:54 to make it a 7-3 game before the big, athletic Wildcats reeled off 10 consecutive points to push out to a 13-7 lead on a Jennifer O'Neill three-pointer at 14:29. Another O'Neill trey at 13:50 extended the lead to 16-8 before junior forward Stephanie Blais (Sherbrooke, Quebec/Montmorency) answered with a layup at 13:29 to make it a 16-10 game.
 
This is as close as the Seahawks would get as two Linnae Harper free throws triggered a 14-0 Wildcat burst, punctuated by a Bria Goss three-pointer at 8:28, that made it 30-10. The plucky Seahawks then played on nearly even terms with Kentucky the rest of the half, as the Wildcats outscored Wagner by a scant 20-17 margin in seizing a 50-27 lead at intermission.
 
In the second half, Wagner again came out with tremendous energy, drawing to within 22 points on a Peck three-pointer off a Nwajei feed with 17:50 left. The Wildcats, coming off of consecutive NCAA Elite 8 appearances and a 30-6 record last season, showed why they are a Top-10 team by going on a 17-2 binge on widening the margin to 35 at 71-36 with 14 minutes remaining. 
 
DeNesha Stallworth led three Kentucky players in double figures with 18 points, While Goss and O'Neill tallied 17 and 11 poijnts, respectively.
 
For Wagner, the dynamic 5-8 Nawajei wound up 7-for-16 from the floor (1-of-4 from beyond the arc) and 4-of-7 from the line in fashioning her 19 points, while also dishing out four assists.  Peck contributed eight points to the Seahawk cause as did promising 6-3 redshirt sophomore center Ugo Nwaigwe (Valley Stream, NY/Valley Stream South). The eight points matched Nwaigwe's career high while her nine rebounds against the tall Kentucky front line were one shy of a career high. The ever-hustling and improving Nwaigwe, who sat out the last 20 games of last season with a foot injury, also recorded a career-high three blocked shots against the Wildcats.
 
"Playing Kentucky has made us a better team. Our goal is January and getting ready for the NEC," said Cermignano. "And with a young team, I tried to create excitement for our team and our program, and Staten Island, but also challenge them against the best.  I brought in a lot of kids who are used to playing at a very high level in high school and who are expected to do the same here. I only know, to play the best, you become the best. Our non-conference schedule is designed to prepare us for our conference,  to allow us to then play for an NCAA bid. That's the meaning behind this. Kentucky is great, just a great team inside, out and backwards.
 
"We've learned a lot today, we got better every day preparing for Kentucky, we got better walking on the court today than we were last Saturday in our scrimmage," Cermignano continued. "We just got better preparing for them, and we got better today  as team, building confidence for seven kids that almost never played before, against a team contesting for a Final Four.

Senior co-captain Laura Amorosa (Kirkland, Quebec/Phillips Academy) turned in an efficient 15-minute outing for the Seahawks, scoring five points on 2-for-2 shooting, one a three-pointer, in addition to grabbing three rebounds, dishing out two assists and coming up with one steal.

Redshirt freshman guard Jazmine Hamlet (Queens, NY/Francis Lewis) also made her presence felt, turning in a productive seven-point, four-rebound, two-steal, one-assist effort in 17 minutes of action off the bench as did freshman wing Maria Conyers-Jordan (Philadelphia,, PA/Friends' Central). The athletic, 5-9 Conyers-Jordan offered a promise of her vast potential, chipping in with five points and two board. Yet another freshman, guard Lyndsay Rowe (South River, NJ/St. John Vianney), hit the scoring column in her Seahawk debut, scoring three points on a first-half trey.

"I think Wagner has a lot to be excited about right now," said Kentucky seventh-year head coach Matthew Mitchell, who's the winningest coach in Wildcat history. "They showed a lot of improvement from last year. I thought they played extremely hard and I think the future is very, very bright for that team. I think that Lisa is an outstanding coach and an outstanding recruiter.  I thought they were well-prepared for the game."

While Kentucky held a solid 47-35 edge in the rebounding department, the Green & White held their own in this category, led by Nwaigwe's hard-working nine-rebound total in the low post.  Defensively, Wagner held Kentucky to a sub 50-percent shooting day, as the Wildcats' hit 49.3 percent from the field, making on 35-of-71 attempts. The Green & White, meanwhile, shot a more than respectable 39% on the afternoon, connecting on 22-of-57 attempts against one of the nation's top defensive outlets.
 
The 57 points scored today by Wagner against No. 7 Kentucky would have ranked as the eight-highest offensive output last season. In fact, over Wagner's final 10 games of the 2012-13 season the Seahawks reached 57 points just once, that coming in a 85-57 loss at Monmouth on March 2.
 
"We scored 57 points against a team that stops everything," said Cermignano. "They stop traffic. That's a great sign right there."
 
The crowd of 1,857 marked the highest attendance since Cermignano took over, as thprevious highest crowd was 812 vs. Army on November 9, 2012.
 
Wagner is next in action on Thursday, November 14 when the Seahawks make the short trek to Monmouth for a 7:00 pm tilt against their former Northeast Conference (NEC) rivals who are playing their first season as members of the MAAC.