The Seton Hall Pirates defeated BIG EAST rivals, the St. John’s Red Storm, 57-48, in a competitive game on Saturday, Jan. 25 at Walsh Gymnasium.
The Pirates were coming off a loss to the ranked UConn Huskies, falling 96-36—a game in which Huskies guard Paige Bueckers surpassed 2,000 career points.
The game started in Seton Hall’s favor. Their defense forced 11 turnovers in the first quarter while only committing one foul and three turnovers themselves. The Pirates scored nine of their 15 points in the first quarter from these forced turnovers.
Both teams made five field goal attempts in the first quarter, but free throws ultimately made the difference. St. John’s converted just one out of two shots from the line, compared to Seton Hall’s five out of six, giving Seton Hall a 15-11 lead heading into the second quarter.
Seton Hall built their largest lead of the game so far, gaining a seven-point lead with nearly four minutes left in the second quarter. Yet, they went cold offensively, as St. John’s closed the gap by ending the quarter on a two-point layup from a fast break to tie the score at 24-24.
The layup was made by St. John’s guard Ber’Nyah Mayo who led the Red Storm in scoring 18 points. She was their only player to score in double digits, with their second-leading scorer, Lashae Dwyer, having eight.
The second half opened with a back-and-forth battle, as the lead changed several times and the game remained tied. However, St. John’s started to pull away with a 3-point shot followed by two successful free throws made, and another big 3-pointer.
For the Pirates, Jada Eads and Savannah Catalon responded with back-to-back 3-pointers as well as two made free throws by Eads, to bring the score back.
The third quarter ended on a score of 41-38 in favor of St. John’s, who were able to build to a five-point lead as the fourth quarter started.
At the beginning of the fourth quarter, Seton Hall went on an impressive 14-0 run, capped off by a tough layup by Faith Masonius, who drew a foul and converted the free throw to complete the 3-point play.
With only 2:35 minutes left in the game, St. John’s was unable to close the gap, scoring only seven points in the fourth quarter compared to Seton Hall’s 19.
Ultimately, the game came down to defense and capitalizing off mistakes: Seton Hall scored 25 points from turnovers and was 13-16 in free throws. St. John’s only scored two points from turnovers and were 4-8 from the free-throw line.
Seton Hall outscored St. John’s 12-5 in second-chance points, despite the Red Storm holding a slight edge in offensive rebounds (9-6) and a more significant lead in overall rebounds (37-27).
Although Faith Masonius led the team with 16 points and eight rebounds, this win for the Pirates can be attributed to an overall team effort.
“She told me she was playing,” said Pirates Coach Anthony Bozzella on Savannah Catalon, who played today after more than a month out on injury. She scored 12 points, drew eight fouls, and matched a career-high in steals with six.
Bozzella praised freshman guard Kaydan Lawson saying that Lawson “stepped up big time” after the freshman scored nine points, had three assists, and two blocks.
Jada Eads also played a great game scoring 11 points with three steals and three rebounds.
With the win, Seton Hall improves to 40-50 all-time against St. John’s, having won seven of their last nine matchups.
The Pirates are now 16-5 overall and 8-2 in BIG EAST play. They secured their spot as the third-best team in the BIG EAST conference, trailing only Creighton and UConn. Their next game will be on Feb. 5, at 7 p.m. against Creighton in Omaha.
Ace Crawford is a writer for The Setonian’s Sports section. Ace can be reached at grace.crawford@student.shu.edu.
