St. John’s women’s basketball (19-7, 9-6 Big East) prevailed in another defensive battle, this time against Seton Hall (15-8, 9-5) on Feb. 7, winning 67-61 at Carnesecca Arena.
In the latest of numerous St. John’s games this season that featured low scoring quarters, the Johnnies’ 21-point third quarter proved to be the primary difference in the win over their local rivals. St. John’s has now won three straight, having beaten Providence and Xavier after a 30-point loss at Creighton.
Sa’Mya Wyatt led the way for the Johnnies, scoring a game-high 20 points on 9-for-12 shooting, which included just her fourth and fifth three-pointers of the season. Daniela Abies controlled the glass, grabbing twelve rebounds total, and Jailah Donald facilitated the offense in her 37 minutes with five assists.
The Pirates’ Mariana Valenzuela and Savannah Catalon combined for 30 points, but Seton Hall as a team shot poorly, going 37.3% from the field (compared to 50% for St. John’s) while shooting 5-for-22 from deep. It was a waste, considering the Pirates owned the turnover battle, 23-9; Donald alone was responsible for six of those.
St. John’s Head Coach Joe Tartamella knew it wasn’t a perfect game, giving a sarcastic “yeah, thanks,” to a reporter when told his team had 23 turnovers, but he thought the Johnnies played well overall.
“We played as tough as we’ve played all year,” he said. “Trying to overcome a number of turnovers there, but in terms of the glass and how we played, we shot it really well today, which is a huge factor, and I thought our defense was strong enough especially through the first three quarters.”
At first, it felt as if the game would have a very different story. Seton Hall jumped out to a 9-1 lead within two minutes and 30 seconds, aided by the Johnnies being careless with the ball. Though that would continue, the defense tightened up from there, limiting the Pirates to just five more points over the quarter and 25 by the end of the half.
In the third, St. John’s jumped out to a 35-25 lead before slowly allowing Seton Hall to cut the deficit to four. From there, it pulled away again and kept a lead it would keep for the game’s remainder, helped by timely three-pointers from Beautiful Waheed and Kylie Lavelle. The Pirates stayed close in the fourth, but their poor shooting prevented a comeback.
“If I had the right answer, I’d probably be a lot more sane in the brain,” Tartamella said when asked how he betters his team coming out of halftime. “But they were locked in this morning, and I felt pretty good. We typically have different types of shoot-arounds, and I felt they were very locked in this morning…In the locker room, it’s just more of continuing to build on the categories we wanna win and try to continue to take away certain things.”
Still in the thick of the college basketball season, St. John’s has five more Big East games until the tournament, starting with a Feb. 10 match at DePaul with a 7 p.m. tip-off. The Johnnies return to Queens on Feb. 18 when they take on Georgetown.
