The Seton Hall women’s basketball team traveled up to McCann Arena in Poughkeepsie to take on Marist Tuesday and were able to use a strong second half, where they outscored the Red Foxes by 28 points, to pick up the 76-63 victory.
The Pirates (2-0) fell behind late in the first half, being down as many as 17 points and facing a 15-point deficit at halftime, but seemingly played a completely different game to grab the lead midway through the third quarter and never looked back, to defeat the Red Foxes (0-3).
Jaquan Jackson lead the way for Seton Hall with 18 points, five assists and four steals. Freshman Kaela Hilaire contributed 16 points and six steals, and LaTecia Smith added 12 points, eight rebounds and four steals. In total the Pirates had 20 steals and forced 29 Marist turnovers, albeit committing 18 themselves.
After leading Marist 19-17 after the first quarter, the second quarter did not favor the Pirates at all. They seemed discombobulated on the court, shooting 1-13 from three-point range and 35 percent from the field. Marist closed out the half on a 15-2 run and outscored the Pirates 22-5 in the entire quarter, pulling away going into the break up 39-24. From here, Seton Hall knew it needed to step up the level of play.
The Pirates came storming out of the gates to open the second half to change the course of the game completely. Consecutive threes from Kaity Healy, two from Jackson and Claire Lundberg closed the gap to 39-36, and another basket made it a one point game, forcing a Marist timeout. Tied at 41-41, Marist scored six straight points, but Seton Hall scored 14 in a row to outscore the Red Foxes 31-8 in the third quarter to lead 55-47.
The final quarter of play continued to excite, and it was all Pirates, who continued to increase their lead to as large as 16 before being able to play at their own pace and cruise to the victory after fighting so hard to climb the hill and come back from such a steep deficit.
Head coach Tony Bozzella came into the matchup 0-28 all-time in his coaching career against the Red Foxes' head coach Brian Giorgis, ending a 14-year drought.
The Pirates will come home to Walsh Gymnasium on Thursday, Nov. 17 to take on Boston College, with tip-off set for 7 p.m.
Matt Lamb can be reached at matthew.lamb@student.shu.edu or on Twitter @MattS_Lamb.
