The Seton Hall Pirates women’s basketball team have developed into consistent winners under coach Tony Bozzella with 8 postseason appearances in the past 11 seasons. Each year brings promises of additional improvement but usually a combination of injuries, inconsistency, and sometimes just plain bad luck have led the Pirates to the WNIT or WBIT tournaments instead of the NCAA Tournament. Bozzella said before the season that the most important element of this season would be staying healthy. Results in that area have been mixed, with injuries to Savannah Catalon and Shailyn Pinkney leaving the Pirates down two of their normal starters. Unlike past years though, Messiah Hunter and Jada Eads have stepped up in their place and Eads and the Pirates have barely missed a beat and gotten off to their best Big East start in years.
The most important new piece has been the Faith Masonius, who has a legitimate claim as the Pirate with the longest resume of success already in her pocket before coming through the doors of Walsh Gym since Dana Wynne, Robin Cunningham, and Hall of Fame coach Anne Donovan. Masonius played AAU ball for New Jersey Rise coached by her mom Ellen, a former grad assistant for the great Geno Auriemma at UConn who was part of their first Big East Championship team in 1989 which started the growth into the behemoth the Huskies are today. Faith played high school ball at Manasquan High School for Lisa Kukoda winning multiple state championships before moving on for five years at Maryland (including one injury redshirt year) playing for Hall of Fame coach Brenda Freese. Faith had one year of eligibility left and wanted to play closer to home at either Seton Hall or Villanova so her family could come to all her games. The Pirates won the recruiting war and Masonius has stepped up from being a role player at Maryland averaging 6.1 points per game in her career with the Terrapins and is now taking the Big East by storm with the Pirates, receiving multiple Big East Team of the week honors and averaging nearly 20 points per game and hitting the wildest game winner I’ve seen in some time. (Yes, way better than Dylan Harper’s dagger for Rutgers against the Seton Hall men’s team last month).
The Pirates finished off 2024 with a 69-49 victory over Butler at Hinkle Field House in Indianapolis on December 29 to jump to a 10-3/2-0 start to the season. Two of those three losses are to nationally ranked powerhouses LSU and USC. 2025 started off with a New Years Day nightcap at Finneran Pavilion on the lovely Main Line campus of Villanova University, which has been a house of horrors for the Pirates as of late, with the last victory over the Wildcats on their home court coming four years ago on February 27, 2021. Denise Dillon’s Villanova squad has been a bit of a mixed bag so far this season, finishing their out of conference slate at 6-6 and including a 76-62 Big Five Championship game defeat on their home court at the hands of the Temple Owls. A 71-57 victory over St. John’s in their Big East opener brought them into the Seton Hall game at 7-6/1-0, needing another victory in hand prior to their meeting with The Behemoth Huskies on Sunday.
The Pirates jumped out to a quick 15-7 lead over the Wildcats in the first quarter with Amari Wright and Yaya Lops each chipping in four points. Early in the second quarter an 10-2 run by the Pirates with three pointers from Jada Eads and Faith Masonius put a 25-13 lead on the board and appeared ready to put the game out of reach but the Wildcats were never going down that easily. Danae Carter kicked off an 11-2 run for the Wildcats which ended with a Jasmine Bascoe buzzer beater to send the game into halftime with the Pirates clinging to a 3 point lead 27-24. The third quarter was the Bronagh Power-Cassidy show, as she scored 10 of the Wildcats 13 points giving the Wildcats a 37-35 lead late in the third. The Pirates answered back with a 7-0 burst of their own capped off by Kaydan Lawson doing her best Patrick Mahomes impression and firing a ¾ court pass up court in less than five seconds to find Joniyah Bland-Fitzpatrick underneath the basket for a layup at the buzzer and giving the Pirates a 42-37 lead at the end of the third quarter.
Villanova immediately seized back momentum in the fourth quarter while the Pirates went ice cold. A 12-4 run by the Wildcats over the first six minutes of the quarter while Jada Eads had all four Pirates points during that stretch until a scary moment with about four minutes left. Eads was driving towards the basket when she was accidentally tripped up by a Wildcats player causing Eads to fall face first into Danae Carter’s knee. Eads was helped off by the training staff and checked for a concussion but did return to the game for the final minute. Bascoe hit another basket for the Wildcats to extend the lead to 51-46 with 2:40 left, and the Pirates appeared to be fading down the stretch and then Masonius stepped up with a steal and dish to JBF for a layup to close the gap to 2 at 51-49. Bascoe countered with a basket and two free throws to extend the lead back to 55-51 for the Wildcats with just under a minute left. Yaya Lops hit a clutch 3 to close the gap to 1 and things just kept getting weirder. With 16.5 seconds left Amari Wright was whistled for an offensive call but Danae Carter was still moving at the time, far from a set position. A five second call against Villanova on the ensuing inbounds play gave the ball right back to the Pirates…who missed and then fouled Carter to put her at the line with the chance to ice the game for the Wildcats with 6.7 seconds left. Carter missed both free throws, setting poetry in motion for the Pirates. Lawson dribbled up court and found Wright alone on the right wing for a quick touch pass back to Masonius under the basket. With four Wildcat defenders collapsing on her, Faith pulled out a trick shot seen previously in a game against LeMoyne a few weeks back, tossing the ball backwards over her head and the four Villanova players into the basket as time expired to give the Pirates an incredible 56-55 victory.
The victory lifted the Pirates to 11-3/3-0, their first 3-0 Big East start since 2016, the last time they made the NCAA tournament. Returning home to face off against the resurgent Georgetown Hoyas (8-5/1-1) on Saturday. Georgetown is usually closer to the bottom of the Big East than the top, but they finished 9-9 in the Big East last season and went on a miracle run to the Big East Tournament final before getting flattened by The Behemoth. Victoria Rivera is a budding star for the Hoyas. The Junior is averaging 13 points per game and scored 21 against Colgate earlier this season. With Faith Masonius holding down the fort inside for the Pirates, Rivera and her outside shooting would need a good showing for the Hoyas to compete. From the opening tip, Rivera did just that. Rivera hit two early three pointers to counter a fast start by Yaya Lops on the way to a 13-10 Georgetown lead at the end of the first quarter. Kelsey Ransom and Khadee Hession joined in on the barrage of Hoyas shots to bring the Hoya scoring run to 14-0 from the late first to middle second quarter and a 24-10 lead before a layup from Masonius at 5:06 left in the second finally stopped the bleeding for the Pirates. The Pirates started chipping away at the lead to close the gap to a 30-22 Hoyas lead at halftime.
Victoria Rivera stayed on fire for the Hoyas early in the third bringing the Hoya lead back up to 12 and then the Pirate defense went to work while Eads and Lops checked in from three point land to kick off a 21-3 Pirate run to storm all the way back and take the lead at 45-39 with 2:20 left in the third quarter. Rivera immediately answered back with a 3 pointer for the Hoyas to close the third on a 7-0 run and take back the lead at 46-45. The Pirates took the lead right back on a Jada Eads three pointer which kicked off a back and forth battle down the stretch in which neither team could get ahead by more than a few points. A Kelsey Ransom three pointer put the Hoyas up 57-52 with 4:14 left. Lops answered back with another three to cut the deficit right back to two points. Masonius drilled a three with 1:34 left to put the Pirates ahead 60-59. Ransom tied the game up at 63 with two free throws with 31 seconds left. Coach Bozzella called timeout to draw up a play which ended with Kaydan Lawson drilling a three pointer with three seconds left which appeared to be the game winner…but there were still three seconds left for Victoria Rivera to dash up the court and hit a prayer as time expired from nearly halfcourt to knot the game at 66 and send this crazy game to overtime.
Both teams started off overtime a bit sloppy with the incredible adrenaline roller coaster finally hitting a downswing and neither team scoring for the first three minutes. Ariel Jenkins went to the line and drilled two free throws but anything the Hoyas did Jada Eads immediately answered back. Eads hit one three pointer to put the Pirates back up 1 at 69-68, followed by Rivera answering back with another bomb of her own to make it 71-69 Hoyas with 1:15 left. Eads went right back down the court and did it again, drilling another three to put the Pirates up 72-71. Lawson stole the ball from Hession and Eads hit the ensuing free throws giving the Pirates a 74-71 lead with five seconds left. Regulation ended with Rivera only needing three seconds, so the Pirates weren’t out of the woods yet, and Kelsey Ransom got an open look to try and force a second overtime, but Ransom’s shot missed for the Pirates to finally breathe a sigh of relief and celebrate the first 4-0 Big East start in program history along with Jada Eads career high 27 points besting Victoria Rivera’s career high 26 points.
Coming up: The Pirates (12-3 overall/4-0 Big East) have a huge game against Creighton up next at Noon on Saturday January 11 at home at Historic Walsh Gym in on the campus of Seton Hall University. Creighton, Seton Hall, and The Behomoth (UConn) are all tied for first place in the Big East at 4-0, but the Blue Jays need to get through Marquette (10-4/2-1) on Wednesday evening first.
JD Walker is one of the co-founders of Stream Punk Entertainment and has covered the Big East Basketball, New Jersey High School basketball, and Philadelphia Union of MLS since 2022. He has a wide-spanning career with experience in a variety of roles inside and outside the world of sports including basketball operations, gameday entertainment, promotions, broadcasting, and finance. He’s a Jersey Shore native sprung from a cage on Highway 9, and loves to geek out on the business and legal side of the games we all love.