Seton Hall Athletics
After trailing in Providence, the women’s basketball team came back big to defeat the Friars 68-67 on Sunday.
The Pirates trailed the Friars for the majority of the game until Ka-Deidre Simmons made two foul shots within the game’s final seconds to bring the Pirates their fifteenth victory of the season, and fourth Big East win, improving the team to 15-2 on the season, 4-1 in conference play.
The Pirates had not trailed by more than 12 points at any point this season, and came back from a deep halftime deficit for the first time this year. The Pirates trailed by eight at the half on Sunday and had lost both games this season when it was down through 20 minutes of action.
The Pirates entered today’s game coming off of a 78-54 home win over Xavier on Friday, Jan. 9, where a season-high five players scored double digits. On Sunday it was four: Ka-Deidre Simmons put up 22; junior Tabitha Richardson-Smith had 16, graduate student Daisha Simmons had 13 and junior Tiffany Jones had 12.
Richardson-Smith’s 16 points led her to now have over 1,000 points in her career here at Seton Hall. Entering the game she needed 11 to join the 1,000-point club and now sits 20th in program history with 1,005 points.
Seton Hall trailed by as many as nine points in the first half after shooting only 28.6 percent from the field and landing just one of 11 3-point attempts. Ka-Deidre Simmons was the star offensively for the Hall, scoring 12 points with four assists while playing all 20 minutes of the half.
Keeping a lead over the Pirates, the Friars opened the second half on an 11-2 run to hold its largest lead of the game, 46-29. The Pirates soon came back to bring the game within range and ended up outscoring Providence 37-21 to pull within one point with 1:20 left in the game. It was Richardson-Smith who brought the game to 66-67.
In the final 12 seconds of the game, a Providence foul sent Ka-Deidre Simmons to the line to shoot two free throws. She downed both free throws to give the Pirates a one point lead, 68-67. Providence scrambled to take the lead back in Seton Hall remained in the lead until the final buzzer.
The Pirates will return home for their next matchup against Marquette. Tip-off is set for 7:00 p.m.
Olivia Mulvihilll can be reached at Olivia.mulvihill@student.shu.edu or on Twitter @OliviaMulvihill.
