Marist women’s basketball continued their slide on Saturday night, losing to Big East opponent St. John’s 50-40 in a defensive battle.
After a loss to Yale on Wednesday made it three straight road losses for Marist, the Red Foxes (2-5) could not turn things around at home. Subpar shooting from both sides led to a close game in the early going, but St. John’s (4-5) used a third-quarter run to distance themselves and held onto the lead in the fourth quarter by attacking the paint.
St. John’s entered the night showing some signs of life after a slow start to the season, as they most recently dismantled Loyola Maryland 71-49 at home on Wednesday night. Senior guard Unique Drake has led the way for the Red Storm, entering the night averaging 19.8 points a game while shooting 49% from deep on 6.6 attempts per game. The Red Storm expect to be competitive in the vaunted Big East conference, as they ranked sixth out of 11 teams in the Preseason Coaches’ Poll.
Marist opened the scoring with consecutive triples, as sophomore center Morgan Lee connected from the top of the arc and redshirt sophomore guard Lexie Tarul followed it up on the next possession with a 3-pointer from the right wing. With the team’s primary ballhandler, senior point guard Kiara Fisher, once again missing action due to injury, players such as sophomore guard Jackie Piddock and freshman guard Julia Corsentino shared ball-handling duties.
After Marist took the 6-0 lead, St. John’s reeled off seven unanswered, with Drake making a three of her own halfway through the quarter amid the run. Both teams struggled mightily on offense for the balance of the first quarter; Marist also suffered from some bad luck, as a couple of accurate Cosentino 3-point looks from the top of the arc rimmed out.
At the end of one, Marist led 8-7. The Red Foxes shot an abysmal 2-12 from the field; somehow, St. John’s was even worse, going 2-17 during the first frame.
Piddock tried pulling the Red Foxes out of their offensive malaise with a 3-pointer early in the second quarter but the struggles continued, with perpetual turnovers plaguing the Marist attack. St. John’s stole the rock from Marist on three consecutive possessions midway through the quarter, with sophomore guard Skye Owen accounting for two of them and junior forward Phoenix Gedeon responsible for the other. On all three possessions, they went coast-to-coast and made the driving layup on the other ending, giving the Red Storm a 15-11 lead and prompting Marist head coach Erin Doughty to call a timeout.
“We talked about valuing the basketball,” said Doughty of the team’s conversation during the timeout. “We needed to be sure of our entry passes, I think some of them were just lazy passes honestly.”
“It was very self-inflicted. We’ve dealt with pressure before,” added senior forward Zaria Shazer. “We knew that we could handle it, it’s just that we were panicking within ourselves, it wasn’t anything specific about their pressure or what they were doing to us.”
Shazers’ shooting struggles continued early, as the team’s leading scorer went 0-4 from the field in the first half after shooting 1-12 against Yale; she did however lead the way for Marist with five first-half rebounds. After an ugly half, St. John’s led 18-13.
Photo from Jaylen Rizzo
“Zaria, she’s just so hard on herself. She expects herself to be perfect all the time, and sometimes that’s our fault, because we rely on her to do everything,” said Doughty.
Out of the locker room, Shazer finally broke out of her funk. She scored eight points in five minutes, making a couple of midrange shots and going 4-4 from the free throw line as Marist tied things up at 23 apiece.
“I think we knew we weren’t dead,” said Shazer. “[Doughty] said we had to go out there and give them a fight… we had to come out and just really push because we knew we were capable of winning the game.”
St. John’s then went on a 10-0 run; Drake buried a corner three and a side-step 3-pointer, and Owen followed it up with a three of her own. At the end of three, Marist trailed 35-26.
Beginning the fourth quarter, the Red Storm preserved their margin by continually attacking the paint. Marist struggled to protect the rim all night long, as St. John’s outscored them by 16 in the paint and out-rebounded them 36-20.
A midrange shot from Marist sophomore forward Ciara Croker brought the deficit to eight with three minutes remaining, but the Red Storm managed to keep a consistent cushion down the stretch, ultimately winning 50-40. Drake finished with a game-high 19 points and shot 2-5 from deep.
“She’s a tremendous talent, she’s obviously shooting the three really well, and she’s quick enough to break you down and shoot the pull-up or get to the basket,” said Doughty. “I know she ended up with 19 [points scored], but I thought Catie Cunningham did a fairly good job on her and made her work for everything.”
Marist marches on, still trying to snap their winless streak, and they’ll host another home game this upcoming Wednesday at 7 p.m. against Drexel. The Dragons are 2-3 on the year and feature three scorers averaging double digits, while the team as a whole is shooting 36% from deep. This matchup will present yet another test for Doughty’s defense.
Edited by Ben Leeds
Photos from Jaylen Rizzo
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