After taking a pair of bad losses, St. John’s needed
After back-to-back tough losses against Xavier and Villanova, the Red Storm was able to defeat rival Georgetown on Sunday afternoon 63-55.
Along with the usual cast, St. John’s got big contributions off the bench.
Junior forward Jade Walker and junior guard Aaliyah Lewis also played well against the Hoyas. Walker scored nine points and had seven rebounds in her 23 minutes of playing time. Lewis also scored nine points and had four rebounds.
“Our bench really helped us again,” Tartamella said. “Not just that they played, but they contributed. It was good to see that.”
Senior guard Danaejah Grant led the team with 20 points and seven rebounds in the win. It was the red-hot senior’s fourth 20-point performance in as many games.
“I just wanted to make sure that I gave my team a chance,” Grant said. “I wanted to put us in a situation where we were able to win the game and just wanted to give my all out there.”
Aliyyah Handford managed to put in the work outside of offensive output. She went just 4-of-12 from the field and committed five turnovers, but stepped up on defense with a game-high eight rebounds and two steals.
“I just have to keep my confidence up even when I have an off-night,” Handford said.
Handford’s approaching a significant career milestone at 2,000 points. Her 13 points Sunday puts her 33 points behind the the program’s all-time leader Ling Ling Hou. This game also placed Handford in ninth place on the all-time rebounding list at 666 boards.
Despite the upcoming plateau, Handford remains focused on getting St. John’s into
“I’m not even thinking about it,” she said. “I’m just going to keep on playing and let it come to me. It will be a great feeling, however, getting to 2,000 points.”
The defensive effort was a strong one as well. The Hoyas never led the game and largest lead the Storm had was by 11 points in the second quarter. The head coach was happy with the team’s defense.
“We took away the things [Georgetown] wanted to do and I thought we put them in some tough positions,” Tartamella said.
With the win, the Johnnies have a chance of entering the postseason as the second seed in the conference behind DePaul if they are able to win their last four games.
“You want to be as good as you can,” Tartamella said. “I want to win four games. “But I want to win them one at a time. Right now the way the league looks, you have DePaul by themselves and everyone else kind of fighting for [second place]. Your job as a team is to win your games. You can bet for sure I’d like to be the two-seed, but you have to do your job. Our job is to win four games. Hopefully we do and we’re ok.”
