Valenzuela Mania Continues to Rock South Orange

Published: Wednesday, January 14, 2026

by Joe Morales

SOUTH ORANGE, N.J. -- Tony Bozzella and the Seton Hall women’s basketball team (12-5, 6-2 CONF) knew the Marquette Golden Eagles (11-6, 5-3 CONF) would be no easy task. Mariana Valenzuela set a new career-high with 26 points as the Pirates flew past the Golden Eagles 64-61.

It did not come easy for the Pirates. Marquette came out firing, scoring 20 in the first quarter. Junior Halle Vice came out shooting, scoring 11 in the first quarter alone, before leaving with an injury for a brief period of time, and returning early in the second quarter. The Pirates fell behind after shooting 4-23 in the first quarter, but only trailed by 11 points.

Then Valenzuela began to take over. She converted on her first two shots, and the Pirates began to climb back into the contest. The Pirates held Marquette to an eight-plus-minute scoring drought to start the second.

During the scoring outage, Seton Hall forced six Marquette turnovers, allowing them to cut the deficit to three by halftime. The Pirates shot just 26 percent in the first half, but held the Golden Eagles to two field goals in the second quarter 

“It wasn’t pretty,” Bozzella said. “But you give the kids credit. We went on a 17-0 run at some point.”

That 17-0 run came in the middle of the third quarter. After Bozzella used a timeout just two minutes into the quarter, the Pirates gained momentum and went blow-for-blow with the veteran Marquette team down the stretch.

“They’re very well coached. They’re a veteran team. They play zero freshmen, zero sophomores.” Bozzella said.

As the game progressed, Valenzuela improved. The graduate student knocked down three three-pointers and scored 17 of her 26 points in the second half. Despite shooting 1-7, Savannah Catalon went 10-10 from the free-throw line, which sealed the game in the fourth quarter.

“People take Savannah Catalon for granted,” Bozzella said. “I will never underestimate the value of that woman in this program. She’s as valuable a player as I’ve coached here in 13 years. Savannah Catalon is that valuable.”

The Pirates now sit in third place in the BIG EAST with a road trip to DePaul coming up on Saturday.

Joe Morales is the Technical Operations Director at WSOU and can be reached at joseph.morales@student.shu.edu 

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