The St. John’s women’s basketball team defeated the Providence Friars 85-65, as they became the first team in program history to win ten straight Big East games.

“We understand that it’s a tough conference, which is why we keep working hard to maintain what we are doing on the court, sophomore guard Danaejah Grant said. “I think every day in practice we take a step towards keeping our rhythm.”

The Red Storm (18-5, 11-1) had one of their best offensive games on the season on Saturday afternoon versus the Friars (6-17, 1-11) as they had a season high in bench points with 47, total rebounds with 59 and offensive rebounds with 23.

The Johnnies have now won 13 of their last 14 games and were led by a career performance by Danaejah Grant as she recorded her first career double-double with 11 points and ten rebounds. Grant was helped out by freshman Jade Walker who scored a career-high 14 points and senior Eugeneia McPherson had a career-best 11 assists.

“Over the years we’ve talk about not letting ourselves ever think that we have arrived,” St. John’s head coach Joe Tartamella said. ”The
culture that we are creating is starting to form but we know we have a long way to go. Every team is dangerous. We understand that we have to fight for everything we want to strive for.”

On the day St John’s launched a season high 80 field goal attempts, making 35 of the shots for a 43.8 percent mark.

In the first half St. John’s got of to a slow start, as they were down early. But everything would start to come together at the 12:39 mark. From that point on the Lady

Johnnies went on a 30-15 run to end the half and take the lead over the Friars 43-30. Second chance points were key in the half for St. John’s as they outscored Providence 18-5.

The Red Storm didn’t relinquish the lead for the rest of the game, as they were able to put away the Friars in the second half as they went on a 21-7 run. The Lady Johnnies were able to stretch their lead throughout the half by shooting 18-for-37 (48.6 percent.) from the floor in the half on their way to a 20-point victory.

It was a much better second half for us energy wise and as a team so we were very happy with the way we finished,” Tartamella said.

“We were able to finish off a conference game at home which is always important. I thought as a team we did a really nice job and now we get a little bit of time to recuperate as we head into our next game one week from today.”

The Red Storm will have its next chance to extend its record-winning streak on Feb. 15 at Carnesecca Arena versus Villanova.