St. John’s Soccer suffers a rough week in Big East play

St. John’s men’s soccer has fallen to 12-2-1 on the season and 5-1-1 in Big East play after going 0-1-1 last week. The Red Storm are still a top-10 team, but the week dropped the Johnnies to 2^nd place in the Big East after falling to current 1^st place team Georgetown last week.

The week also saw St. John’s to move from 4^th to 8^th in the United Soccer Coaches D1 rankings and down to 3^rd from 1^st in the NCAA’s RPI rankings.

Despite the rough week, the Johnnies were able to place Tani Oluwaseyi on the Big East Honor Roll for his role in salvaging the game against Seton Hall last week. Oluwaseyi leads the team in Big East Honors with two Honor Roll selections and one Offensive Player of the Week selection.

The Johnnies will look to rebound from last week as they wrap up the season over the next week as they take on DePaul on Saturday, November 2 for the home finale and at Providence next Wednesday, November 6.

Looking at last week...

St. John’s 0, Georgetown 3

The Johnnies dropped their first game of last week in their toughest matchup of the year as they hosted Georgetown.

The game began evenly matched as expected but got out of hand quickly for the Johnnies. Jacob Montes and Dylan Nealis scored the first two goals for the Hoyas in the 23^rd and 24^th minutes respectively. Derek Dodson wrapped up the scoring for the Hoyas with a 72^nd minute goal to bring the Georgetown total to three.

The Johnnies were unable to threaten the Hoyas. They amassed only 4 shots on target all game and none felt like they had much promise. Goalies Jan Hoffelner and Luka Gavran each got 45 minutes in net for the Johnnies and conceded two and one goal respectively.

The game was frustrating for both players and fans as the realization of a loss in the biggest game of the year set in. The game exposed holes in the St. John’s team as they were victimized primarily by the speed of Georgetown’s play, constantly allowing the ball to be dribbled straight to the penalty box.

Regardless of the result of the game, there is still confidence in the Johnnies as they have built up quite the resume this season up to this point.

Following the loss, the Johnnies had a three-day turnover before their next match at Seton Hall.

St. John’s 1, Seton Hall 1

The Johnnies had an opportunity to rebound from their first conference loss of the season with a match against an 8^th place Seton Hall, but like the Georgetown game, the Johnnies failed to meet their expectations.

Though the Johnnies got 15 shots against Seton Hall, only 2 were on target, including Forward Tani Oluwaseyi’s team leading 9^th goal of the season. Oluwaseyi was assisted by Defenseman Matt Chandler and Midfielder Brandon Duarte in the 50^th minute.

Nine goals this season gives Oluwaseyi the most by a Johnny since 2006, the year they won the NCAA Championship. On top of the team lead, Oluwaseyi leads the Big East and is now two goals short of being top-10 nationally in the category.

On the defensive side of the ball for St. John’s, allowed only 3 shots on target from Seton Hall and shut down the quick attack that led to their downfall earlier in the week. The Johnnies did commit 12 fouls throughout the game (compared to Seton Hall’s 20) and received five yellow cards and one red card along the way.

Next week will figure to be the last week of the regular season and the Johnnies look to reclaim the top seed in the Big East if things go their way. The team would need to make up a 3-point differential on Georgetown to have a claim at the spot as both teams have two matches left, against DePaul and at Providence.