Photo by Adrienne Terzuoli
Box Score
Jamaica, NY - Redshirt senior guard
Romone Saunders tossed in 17 points to get within one point of the 1,000-point career mark and Wagner held an early 30-29 second-half l before undefeated St. John's pulled away for a 73-55 win on Sunday.
With the loss, the Seahawks fall to 4-5 on the season while the Redstorm are out to their first 10-0 start since the 1982-83 season.
The Green & White stood toe-to-toe with their Big East counterparts during a first half that saw Wagner take the lead on four different occasions. Sophomore guard
Chase Freeman paced the Seahawks with eight first-half points, sophomore forward
Nigel Jackson had six, while Saunders chipped in with five first-half points.
Jackson gave Wagner an early 2-0 lead by knocking down a 15-footer before Johnnies responded with a 7-1 burst, capped by a Marvin Clark III three-pointer, in taking a 7-3 lead. The Seahawks then responded with a 7-0 run, on a pair of buckets from redshirt senior forward
AJ Sumbry sandwiched around a Saunders three-pointer. The spurt was capped by a pretty feed from Freeman to Sumbry in transition, wth the latter's layup giving Wagner a 10-7 lead with 14:43 left in the half.
After Wagner fell behind by a 17-13 count at the 10:22 mark following a Bryan Trimble. Jr. three-pointer, Wagner played its best stretch of basketball over the game's next four minutes, going on a 10-2 run, keyed by a trio of three-pointers, in building its biggest lead of the game, a 23-19 edge with 6:05 to go before the break.
Freeman got the Wagner run started with a three-ball, answering Trimble's trey, to make it 17-16. After Shamorie Ponds sank a pair of free throws to put SJU up 19-16,, senior guard
Devin Liggeons drained a three-pointer off a Jackson feed, knotting score at 19-19 with 8:42 left.
Saunders then capped the Seahawk spurt with five unanswered points on a pair of free throws, followed by a three-pointer, that gave the Seahawks that 23-19 lead. The Red Storm then closed the half on a 10-5 run in eking out the 29-28 advantage at the intermission.
Saunders opened the second half with a 10-foot jumper to give the Seahawks a 30-29 lead but this would prove to be the final lead of the game for the Seahawks. Following Saunders' jumper, St. John's got hot from deep, knocking down a flurry of three-pointers during a pivotal 20-3 run that staked the Red Storm to a 49-33 lead with 13:08 left in the game and SJU never looked back..
While Saunders was the lone Seahawk to hit for double figures, Wagner was balanced on offense as 10 of the 11 Seahawks who saw action found the scoring column on the afternoon. Freeman finished with eight points, all in the first half, as the 5-10 Tennesseean delivered a solid floor game, adding four assists with just two turnovers in 35 minutes against SJU's relentless pressure defense. Jackson and freshman guard
Jonathan Norfleet finished with six points each.
The other Seahawks to score on the day included Sumbry (5), freshman guard
Tyrone Nesby IV (5), senior guard
Elijah Davis (4), and Liggeons (3), while hitting for two points apiece were junior guard Jeff Colanges and junior forward
Chance Anderson, the latter coming on a second-half, rim-rattling slam dunk.
