St. John’s basketball takes down Yale despite key absence

St. John’s basketball beats Yale despite the absence of Leilani Correa. 

On Sunday afternoon at Carnesecca Arena the St. John’s basketball team took care of business against the Yale Bulldogs coming away with an 86-68 win, despite the absence of star junior guard Leilani Correa.

The reason for Correa’s absence has not been confirmed, but is concerning going forward if it is any sort of long term issue, especially coupled with the announcement earlier this week that forward Raven Peeples will be out indefinitely with a knee injury.

Yale got off to a hot start in the game, shooting 50.0-percent from the field in the first quarter as St. John’s started off but ended the quarter strong.

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The first quarter ended with the two teams tied at 19, but after that it was all Johnnies.

The Red Storm would outscored the Bulldogs 28-15 in the second quarter to jump out to a 13-point halftime lead.

From there it never really felt like the Red Storm were threatened.

The Johnnies shot 47.8-percent from the field and 43.8-percent from 3-point range in the game.

St. John’s winded up cruising in this game due to its defense, as Yale turned the ball over 23 times in the game.

The Red Storm forced 15 turnovers the first half and generated 22 points off those giveaways.

St. John’s basketball sees strength in numbers in victory

Despite the absence of Correa, other Johnnies’ picked up the scoring slack in the comfortable victory.

Unique Drake, starting in place of Correa, scored a career-high 24 points shooting 10-of-18 from the field and 3-of-6 from 3-point range.

Danielle Cosgrove and Sara Zabrecky also notched career-highs with 18 and nine points, respectively.

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Kadaja Bailey, coming off of a career best performance against Temple, also chipped in with 14 points and seven rebounds to continue her hot stretch to begin the season.

The senior has hit double figures in scoring in three of St. John’s first four games.

St. John’s improves to 3-1 on the season after the win and will face Penn State in the Gulf Coast Showcase down in Florida on Friday night at 7:30pm.

Friday’s game will mark the first ever meeting between the two teams.