November 9th, 2006: Iona at St. John's, preseason WNIT

Iona 66, St. John's 56

Joy McCorvey starts out high on the awesomeness scale, there's no rest for the weary, and Iona's surprisingly bad-ass for a MAAC school.


The preseason WNIT came to a crashing halt for St. John's as they lost to Iona, 66-56, in the first round. It was a very trying game for the Red Storm, with four players sidelined by injury before tip-off: All-Big East forward Angela Clark, starting forward Monique McLean, and freshmen posts Victoria Hodges and Recee Mitchell. Just when it seemed that the gods of sport could not inflict any more injury on this team… sometime near the end of the first half, Kia Wright went down in the paint, came up limping, and did not return to the game. St. John's was left with exactly five players to go the distance, freshmen Joy McCorvey, Allie Patterson, and Nikki Jo Rotolo, sophomore Angel Tate, and junior Tiina Sten.

By the end of the game, it was clear that the Red Storm were utterly exhausted, but they fought hard to the buzzer.

Regarding the Gaels: damn, that's a big, strong, deep team for a MAAC program. If you watch that conference, keep an eye on Lauren DiFalco, Lauren Huber, Tiara Headen, and the appropriately named Jessica Anger (yes, she does have a temper). Also, please feel free to slip their coach some tranqs.

Regarding St. John's: there are some suspicious parallels between our last women standing and the Liberty bench.

Joy McCorvey: Hustles. Takes no shit from anyone. Kicks ass. Goes for rebounds and plays rugged defense. Think Ashley Battle, only slightly more offensive-minded and less able to bend steel with her bare hands.

Nikki Jo Rotolo: Long-range stroke. Takes slightly more shit than Joy does, but not by much. Also hustles. Big, stocky guard who tries to get a little flashy sometimes. If anyone ever wondered what Cathrine Kraayeveld would be like if she were half a foot shorter, I think we have our answer.

Tiina Sten: Blonde. Euro. Shies from the paint. Not quite a young Ann Wauters- for one thing, she's not skipped out on the team. Elena's shot, Ann's finesse (and natural blonde locks).

Angel Tate: Good positioning, bad hands. Likes her offense, not so attentive when it comes to screening and defense. I don't know how attracted she is to shiny objects and designer sales, but otherwise she smacks a bit of Iciss Tillis.

Allie Patterson: Flat-footed on defense, occasionally hit a shot on offense, but otherwise a lump of useless. Most of you would say Erin Thorn. I say she's more the perception of Erin Thorn, but yeah, I think if we had one more active player, Allie would be benched.

It's still hard to tell what this team is going to be, what with a dire lack of, oh, our top three players. The freshmen show promise, though, and I'm optimistic about the next couple of years.

Oh- also got to meet Kelly's parents- she's our transfer from Indiana. Nice folks. *waves to the nice parental units*