Monmouth women's basketball stuns St. John's 74-69, as Hawks pull off high-major upset
WEST LONG BRANCH – There was plenty of energy inside Ocean First Bank Center Friday night as Monmouth unfurled a banner celebrating last year’s magical run to the program’s first NCAA Tournament appearance in 40 years.
And then on the court below, the Hawks showed why it might just be the start for the reigning CAA Tournament champions.
The team that lost to St. John’s by 39 points last season rallied from a 12-point fourth quarter deficit to emerge with a stunning 74-69 victory over the Red Storm, as the Hawks added a high-major victory to their growing resume.
The performance, in which the Hawks closed the game on a 17-1 run over the final 7:51, came after they opened the season with a tough five-point loss at Rutgers. Monmouth outscored St. John's 24-9 in the fourth quarter.
“I think we have some true competitors,” Monmouth head coach Ginny Boggess said. “We made winning plays. We made game-winning plays at the rim, we took charges, we defended at a high level and the result went in our favor.”
Leading the way for Monmouth was guard Kaci Donovan and Pitt transfer Taisha Exanor with 14 points each, while guard Ariana Vanderhoop added 11 points.
“We’re bigger, we’re more athletic, we’ve got a lot more opportunities defensively and that is really exciting for me because I like to be aggressive defensively and you saw our ability to match up,” Boggess said. “Taisha was a game-changer at the rim and Belle always is. I think we had nine stops to end the game and when we buy in defensively then offense is a lot easier.”
The Hawk took the lead, 69-68, on a three-point play by Jania Hall with 1:54 to play. Exanor, a 6-1 forward, scored on a driving bank to put them up 71-69 with 1:26 remaining. And after a shot by St. John’s Unique Drake missed, Vanderhoop sank a free throw with 22 seconds left to put them up three points, after trailing 62-50 in the opening minute of the fourth quarter.
Monmouth made a big rally early in the fourth quarter. Trailing 66-54, the Hawks went on a 8-2 run with Jaye Haynes draining a 3-pointer to start the rally, with Exanor‘s bucket pulling them withing 68-62 with 6:23 to play.
“It’s incredible,” Donovan said. “Last year, we took it personal (losing to St. John's), and this year we came back and put our heads down and worked as a team and got a team win.
“We were dropping our banner tonight. We talked about how last year went and how we had to step up and represent and we did that very well.”
St. John's, which advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament last season, was led by Unique Drake's 24 points, while center Jillian Archer added 14 points and eight rebounds.
Monmouth, which won the CAA Tournament last season as a seventh seed, winning four games in four days, battled on the glass all game, holding a 39-31 rebounding edge.
Monmouth women's basketball: NCAA Tournament banner raised tonight before St. John's game
WEST LONG BRANCH – It’s a moment 40 years in the making.
The banner commemorating Monmouth women’s basketball’s 1983 NCAA Tournament appearance will finally have company in OceanFirst Bank Center rafters tonight, with one celebrating last season’s magical run to March Madness getting hoisted skyward raised prior to the home opener against St. John’s.
The ceremony will be held prior to the 7 p.m. tipoff, with fans asked to arrive by 6:45 p.m. On hand will be a group of former players who helped make the historic season possible, including a trio of ex-St. Rose High School stars in Jen Louro, Lucy Thomas and Lovin Marsicano, along with CAA Tournament MVP Bri Tinsley.
“I told them, ‘you 12 will live on in history. You will always be the championship team,’ ” Monmouth coach Ginny Boggess said.
And when the emotion subsides the reality sets in, with a Big East team that advanced in the NCAA Tournament last March and beat Monmouth by 39 points a year ago in town to face a Hawks’ team featuring a host of new faces.
More: 'Culture can win': Monmouth women's basketball rising after historic run to March Madness
“We lost 50 percent of our scoring. We have eight new players. These guys aren’t trying to cash checks somebody else wrote,” Boggess said. “We’re going to do what Monmouth does and it’s going to take a while to get to our best, and that’s OK.
“We got hot. We were a seventh seed (at the CAA Tournament) for a reason. We do have a lot to prove, including to ourselves. I saw LSU’s new locker room and it had a sign that said, ‘If what you did yesterday is still a big deal, you haven’t done anything today.’ I really like that.”
Solid start
The opening salvo wasn’t too bad, with a competitive 56-51 loss to Big Ten foe Rutgers in Piscataway Monday night. A pair of free throws by senior guard Ariana Vanderhoop pulled Monmouth within four points with 1:06 to play, but the Hawks could not get closer.
Vanderhoop finished with had 14 points and seven assists, both team highs. Freshman guard Rosalie Mercille scored 10 points, including a pair of three-pointers, and three rebounds in 19 minutes as the first guard off the bench, while freshman forward Devine Dibula added nine points and three rebounds.
Monmouth had no answer for Manchester native Destiny Adams, the North Carolina transfer who had a double-double, with 13 points and 17 rebounds in her Rutgers deput.
"An incredible road test to start the season. I was super proud of our fight especially in the fourth quarter,” Boggess said. “The physicality and execution demanded will no doubt help us grow. With eight new players, I am looking forward to us all getting to better know one another."
The Red Strom have some familiar faces, including guard Unique Drake, who had 15 points and three assists off the bench against Monmouth last season, and opened the 2023-24 campaign by scoring 27 points in 29 minutes against LIU.
Bolstering the lineup are graduate transfer guard Ber’nyah Mayo, who was the Atlantic 10 Tournament MVP last season for UMass, and graduate transfer forward Amber Brown, who averaged 9.6 points last season at Pitt, where she started all 110 games over four seasons.
“I think this is the next step,” said Boggess, in her third season at Monmouth. “We played Oregon State our first year, so we’ve played some big-time teams. I am not afraid. This is where we learn what the first round or second round NCAA Tournament game will be like.”
This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Monmouth women's basketball raises NCAA banner tonight vs St. John's
