Seton Hall's struggles against Big East teams, and St. Johns in particular, continued this past weekend, as the Pirates dropped their fourth consecutive game to the Red Storm, 58-48.
The Pirates have still winless in conference games this season, and have not defeated St. Johns since the 2006-2007 season.
The loss against the Red Storm drops the Hall's record to 7-11 overall and 0-5 in Big East games.
The Hall had two players in double figures. Junior forward Kandice Green led the Pirates with 15 points, while classmate guard Jasmine Crew had 12.
Shennieka Smith of the Red Storm led all scorers with 16 points.
The Pirates trailed for most of the game. Their only lead came five minutes into the first half.
After being fouled by St. John's sophomore Nadirah McKenith, Crew made her second free throw to give the Hall a 5-4 lead.
The Red Storm responded by going on an 8-2 run. Junior Da'Shena Stevens led the run, scoring four points, and creating a turnover and an getting an offensive rebound.
Seton Hall was forced to call a timeout to stop the momentum of the Red Storm, but St. Johns extended their lead to 16-7 on sophomore Eugeneia McPherson's layup following the timeout.
After being held scoreless for five minutes, sophomore Brittany Morris hit a shot from beyond the arc to cut the Pirates' deficit to six points.
At the four minute mark in the first half, the Pirates began to make a push, and went on a 7-2 run following an offensive board and jumper from Crew.
Senior Kashmere Joseph's three point play made it a 20-17 game and a turnaround jumper from Green put the Pirates back within one.
Following four rebounds down the stretch but multiple missed shots, the Red Storm were able to jump back out to a 28-21 at the end of the half.
The Red Storm scored four quick points in the opening minutes of the second half, all from two point jumpers by senior Sky Lindsay.
Both teams then went scoreless for the next five minutes, a result of five missed shots on each side of the ball.
Two consecutive shots from beyond the arc from freshmen Jazzmine Johnson and junior Whitney Wood made the score 36-30.
The Red Storm once again held the Hall scoreless, this time for four minutes. In that time St. Johns out rebounded the Pirates 5-0.
Freshman Nicosia Henry committed two fouls down the stretch that put the Red Storm on the line where they went up, 44-34, and ultimately put the game out of reach for the Hall.
Their last effort was a late run that included a Morris three pointer and successful free throw shooting.
The Pirates shot 35 percent from the field compared to St. John's 42 percent and had four more turnovers than the Red storm, with 22.
However, the Hall was able to get 31 rebounds and shot better than the Red Storm from beyond the arc, where they went 5-16.
Seton Hall returns to action on Saturday at 8:00 p.m. when they will be in Chicago to take on DePaul.
The Pirates are 0-5 all time against the Blue Demons, who joined the Big East conference in 2005.
Nicholas Parco can be reached at nicholas.parco@student.shu.edu
