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Preview: Seton Hall looks to end homestand with a win over Xavier

Date: January 22, 2021

By: Liam Plate

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Noah K. Murray/AP

The Seton Hall women’s basketball team (7-3 overall, 5-2 conference) will look to end their four-game homestand on a good note on Saturday afternoon as they host the Xavier Musketeers (4-4 overall, 1-3 conference) in order to keep their win streak going.

 

Recently, Seton Hall has gotten a lot of production out of graduate transfer Andra Espinoza-Hunter, who has scored 20+ points in four of her six games this season including 30 points in their last game against St. John’s. The Pirates have been on a real roll and have absolutely dominates their past few opponents at home. Seton Hall also got a big game out of Desiree Elmore last time out against the Red Storm where she scored 26 points and grabbed nine rebounds.

The Pirates will also be looking for sophomore point guard to make an appearance this game as she was out with an injury for their game against St. John’s. Coach Tony Bozzella said that she was day-to-day with an injury. Park-Lane is a player that the Pirates will want back as she is a key contributor to the team as a scorer and a facilitator.

 

On the other side, Xavier is coming off a long break where their last game was played on Jan. 3 against Creighton, which ended in a 53-50 loss for the Musketeers. Kaelynn Satterfield was the only Xavier player to score in double digits as she dropped 12 points. Satterfield averages 9.8 points-per-game and they have two other players who average double digits in Nia Clark (15.2) and A’riana Gray (12.7). Neither Clark nor Grey have played in a game since their Dec. 22 loss to Marquette. It is unclear whether or not either of them will play in this game against the Pirates, but if not, I think there will be another dominant performance from the Pirates.

Seton Hall’s offense has been too good as of late and I expect them to keep up their winning ways over Xavier. The advantage of playing Walsh Gymnasium helps, as well. Xavier has had a lot of games postponed due to COVID-19 complications, so their record can be a little misleading. Even with this fact, I still think that the Pirates will get the win as long as they can keep their same firepower coming in on offense.

 

The most the Pirates will have to do is limit Satterfield on offense and makes sure she doesn’t explode or score double digits like she did against Creighton. This is also a Xavier team that has not played a game in 20 days, which will most likely lead them to a slow start in this one due to the amount of time off.

 

I think that Pirates fans can expect the same Seton Hall team that we’ve seen these past five games and expect big games from Espinoza-Hunter and Elmore once again. The flagship station of Seton Hall women’s basketball 89.5 FM WSOU will have all the coverage you need of this matchup with pre-game coverage starting at 12:45 p.m. with tip-off happening at 1:00 p.m. where Rony Jerez and Michael Daly will be on the call from the historic Walsh Gymnasium.

Liam Plate is the Web Editor for WSOU Sports, and can be reached at wsousportswebeditor@gmail.com.

Posted in: Game Previews, Sports, Women's Basketball

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