Jan. 22, 2008

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NEW YORK (AP) - Shavonte Zellous scored 28 points and No. 19 Pittsburgh won its ninth straight game with a 70-64 victory over St. John's on Tuesday night.

Marcedes Walker added 12 points and 11 rebounds for the Panthers (15-3, 5-0 Big East), who are 5-0 in the conference for only the second time in school history. The No. 19 ranking matches the highest for Pitt, which was also ranked 19th on Dec. 18, 1979.

Kristin Moore scored a career-high 15 points and Kia Wright added 10 to lead St. John's (10-8, 1-4).

"We were down 22 points with eight minutes to go and for us to cut it to six, it showed a lot about our team," said coach Kim Barnes Arico. "It showed that we weren't going to quit. We had people coming off the bench to give us a spark. Our starting guard combination is really struggling at this point. I think we're settling a lot for outside jumpers and that's something we're trying to get away from. I think the people that came in, really did a tremendous job for us and it showed a lot about our team."

It was the third straight ranked opponent that the Red Storm have faced. It lost in overtime at DePaul and played West Virginia tough for a half before getting routed. St. John's offensive woes continued in the first half against Pitt. Leading 15-14 with 11:55 left in the first half, the Red Storm made just one of their next 17 shots over the next 10 minutes.

Pittsburgh outscored St. John's 17-2 during that stretch to take a 31-17 lead before Joy McCorvey finally ended the drought with a putback of her own miss at 1:41. The Panthers led 33-21 at the half.

The Panthers started the second half with a 16-5 run to put the game away. Zellous and Walker each scored six points during the spurt. Walker's layup gave Pitt a 49-26 advantage.

Trailing by 20 with 9:13 left, St. John's used a 12-2 run to close to 57-47 on Moore's three-point play. She had seven points during the spurt. Pitt extended the lead back up to 66-51 on Zellous' three-point play with 3:13 left. The Red Storm refused to go away, scoring the next nine points to close to 66-60 with 1 minute left, but could get no closer.

Pitt, which also started out 5-0 in the Big East in 1993-94, faces Louisville and Villanova before a very difficult February. The Panthers will host No. 5 Rutgers and Seton Hall before traveling to No. 16 Notre Dame and No. 12 West Virginia. They finish off the tough stretch by hosting top-ranked Connecticut.

St. John's leads the all-time series 30-15 and had won the previous six meetings between the schools.

The Red Storm will look to get back on the winning track when it travels to Syracuse on Saturday at 2 p.m.