STONY BROOK, N.Y. – The Stony Brook women's basketball team fended off a resilient St. Francis Brooklyn team in the second half to earn a 74-67 win at the Island Federal Arena on Sunday afternoon.
 
The Seawolves are now a perfect 7-0 at home, a feat that hasn't been achieved since the 2000-01 squad went 8-0 in its first eight home contests. With an overall record of 11-2, the team is also on its best start since 1993-94, when the Seawolves also went 11-2 in its first 13 games.
 
Senior G Shania Johnson (Frederick, Md.) lit up the scoreboard with a season-high 28 points and added in eight assists, a season's best seven rebounds and two steals.
 
McCOMBS REACTION
"I thought we did a tremendous job defensively as a team. We held them 12 points below their average and defensively held them way below their overall field goal averages. I thought we really tried to push the ball today in transition and our bigs did a great job of scoring in the paint and really stepped up today. It was a great team win to close out the non-conference schedule to try and get us ready for conference play. Shorty was just Shorty, just calm and composed with the ball in her hands and making plays."
 
HIGHLIGHTS

• Sophomore G/F Hailey Zeise (Pittsburgh, Pa.) had a big first quarter putting up eight points, including six tallies that were scored in under one minute. 
• With the game tied at 3-3 early on, Zeise converted an old-fashioned three-point play and then followed that up with a long range shot on the next possession to help the team out to a 9-3 lead.
• In the second quarter, Stony Brook shot 50 percent from the field en route to a 40-26 halftime lead.
• St. Francis Brooklyn grabbed some momentum before the halftime break, scoring six unanswered to get within nine, but Johnson reeled off five points of her own to give the home team a 14-point advantage before heading into the locker room.
• Following a jumper by sophomore F India Pagan (New London, Conn.) to kick-start the scoring in the third quarter, the Seawolves found its biggest lead of the day by a score of 42-26.
• However, in the third and fourth, the Terriers started to mount their comeback, ultimately getting within two (63-61) with 4:27 left in the game following a 9-0 run.
• But, Stony Brook sealed the deal down the final stretch, responding with a 7-0 run of its own and hitting key free throws.

NOTES

• Johnson's 28 points were just one away from tying her career-high of 29, which was done at Albany on Jan. 27, 2018.
• She also recorded her 100th assist of the season early in the game, sending out a feed to Zeise and crossed the 200-point threshold to tally 220 this year.
• Pagan and redshirt sophomore F Oksana Gouchie-Provencher (Montreal, Canada) also hit milestones with Pagan going over the career 300-point mark (308) and Gouchie-Provencher collecting over 100-career rebounds (104).
• Several players earned new season and career highs.
• Gouchie-Provencher logged a career best in rebounds (10) and Zeise's 11 points were also a career's best as well.
• Along with her 28 points, Johnson had a season-high seven rebounds.
• Sophomore F McKenzie Bushee (Pittsburgh Pa.), recorded her first double-double of the season with season-highs in points (13) and rebounds (10).
• St. Francis Brooklyn, a team that was shooting 43.6 percent overall and 42.1 percent from beyond the arc entering today's game, was held to percentages of just 37.5 (24-64) and 28.6 (4-14).
• Stony Brook was big in the paint, earning 32 points in the lane and was efficient off of turnovers, scoring 18 from its takeaways. 

UP NEXT

• Stony Brook enters America East play this week, hosting Hartford at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 2.