The St. John’s women’s basketball team withstood another close matchup, escaping with a 66-63 victory over Big East opponent Georgetown Sunday night at Carnesecca Arena. Since the calendar turned to 2014, the Red Storm have put together a six-game winning streak and is currently sitting atop the Big East standings.
After a strong first half, the Red Storm (14-5, 7-1) found themselves down in the closing minutes of the game, but two last minute free throws from sophomore guard Danaejah Grant edged the Johnnies past Georgetown (7-13, 1-7)
“I’m proud of our young ladies with their resiliency and their ability to finish down the stretch,” said St. John’s head coach Joe
Tartamella. “I’m proud of them and we got another big week ahead.”
Senior guard Eugeneia McPherson led the way with her team-high 16 points , as well as 5 assists and 2 steals.
“To see her from the first game to now, she definitely fits in with us and she gives us a huge spark off the bench,” McPherson said on Grant’s clutch performance late in the game. Grant added, “Each game that we play I feel like we gain more experience and being that we’re on top of the Big East now, the rest of the games we play aren’t going to be easy. We’ll just have to find a way to win.”
Junior forward Amber Thompson put together another solid performance down low, finishing with 10 points, 9 rebounds and a career-high 4 blocks.
“One of the reasons why we’re being successful is what Amber is doing,” Tartamella noted. “We feel that she’s one of the best post players of our conference.”
In recent games, the Red Storm has found themselves in tight matchups and the cause of these close contests has been the solid play from the Big East this season.
“Our league is extremely strong and it’s one of the best in the country,” said Tartamella. “The Big East is really starting to show its strength by the way we play against each other.” McPherson added, “It’s really good for our fans to watch.”
St. John’s will try to extend their winning streak to seven games when they take on Big East Rival Xavier Wednesday night at 7 p.m. at Carnesecca.
