NYU won its 82nd straight game to set the Division III record for consecutive victories by a women's basketball team, beating Carnegie Mellon 69-58 victory on Sunday.

The Violets (20-0) broke a tie with rival Washington University of St. Louis, which won 81 games in a row from 1998-2001.

UConn holds the overall NCAA record for consecutive wins with a 111-game streak. The Huskies also have the second-longest streak, a 90-game run.

Caroline Peper scored 27 points to lead the way for two-time defending national champion NYU, which had to work hard for the record-breaking win.

The two teams went back and forth in the first half and NYU led 32-29 at the break on a 3-pointer by Brooke Batchelor a few seconds before the end of the second quarter.

Peper and Batchelor hit consecutive 3-pointers early in the third quarter to start a 17-6 run to go up by double digits. The Tartans closed to within 56-51 midway through the fourth quarter, but Zahra Alexander, who scored all seven of her points in the final quarter, answered with consecutive layups to extend the cushion and make it 60-53 with 3:19 left.

Peper then hit a 3-pointer just before the shot-clock buzzer with just over two minutes left to seal the win.

Sunday's game was a rematch from a week ago. NYU topped Carnegie Mellon (12-7) by just one point in that game. That had been the closest a team had come to defeat the Violets during this run. No team previously came within 12 points this season.

During the historic streak, only three other teams have come within single digits of the Violets: U Chicago lost by six, Whittier by eight and Case Western Reserve by eight two days ago.

Now with the record in hand, the Violets are focused on trying to win a fifth straight UAA Conference title and potentially a third consecutive national championship. Only Wash U has done that, when the school won four consecutive titles from 1998-2001.

Peper is the only player on the roster to have lost a game in college at NYU. She was a freshman on the team that was beaten by Transylvania in the Elite Eight of the Division III NCAA Tournament.

The Violets haven’t lost since.

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