Soccer Recap: Women win Big, Men fall just short on Sunday

The two games that the St. John’s men’s and women’s soccer teams played last night could not have been more opposite. The women coasted to a 5-1 victory over Fairfield in Queens, while the men traveled to Syracuse and fell to the sixth-ranked Orange 3-2 in double overtime.

Five different women scored for the Johnnies in their victory over the Stags, all of which were their first of the season. The Red Storm (4-0-2) have now had ten different women score this season, which is already more than the nine players who scored for them all of last season.

The first goal came in the 12^th minute when Junior Shea Connors found the back of the net. Samie Scaffidi received a cross from Claudia Cagnina who found Connors in traffic where she scored for the first time since 2014.

Just over four minutes later, Connors was the facilitator when she found Senior Morgan Tinari who scored her first goal in two seasons as well.

In the 37^th minute, Tinari sent a corner kick to the near post, where Sophomore Alexa Dolgos headed in her first goal of her career.

The second half started with more of the same as Lucy Whipp sent one past the keeper off an assist from Senna Brennan.

The final goal of the night for the Johnnies was their most spectacular, as Junior Maria Gonzalez Bullon curved one in from 25 yards out into the upper-right hand corner.

Senior Diana Poulin played for 74 minutes, shutting out Fairfield and lowering her goals against average this season to .16. Redshirt Junior Sarah Chaides made her first career appearance in net to close out the victory for the Red Storm.

The Johnnies travel to Oregon next to participate in the Nike Portland Invitational where they play Washington on Friday at 7:30 EST and Portland on Sunday at 5:30 EST.

On the men’s side, St. John’s (1-1-1) had a chance to pull off a huge upset over No.6 Syracuse but fell just short, losing in double overtime 3-2.

This was the first game of the season for the Johnnies that they were not in control of the possession game. The Orange outshot the Red Storm 15-9 and had 11 corner kicks to St. John’s two, but the Johnnies were able to stay in the game.

Syracuse grabbed the lead just before the half when Miles Robinson scored off a corner kick to give the Orange the lead in the 44^th minute.

In the 56^th, the Red Storm found the equalizer. After a save by the Syracuse goaltender on a free kick by Junior Harry Cooksley, he then took the impending corner kick and sent it to the far post where Freshman Alistair Johnston poked it into the net for his second goal in as many games.

Cooksley gave St. John’s the lead in the 65^th minute when he took the ball from 25 yards out and sent a powerful shot with his left foot which bent around the defense and the Syracuse goalie into the top left corner.

Syracuse was not going to go down without a fight, pushing the ball forward every chance they got. In the 82^nd minute, Robinson scored off another corner kick as Michael Bernardi was unable to punch the ball away for St. John’s.

The score remained the same for the rest of regulation and the first overtime, but in the 105^th minute, Jonathan Hagman scored the golden goal for the Orange to give them the victory.

The next game for the Red Storm is on Thursday evening when they travel to Princeton to face the Tigers at 7 p.m.