St. John’s soccer falls to Seton Hall in overtime thriller

St. John’s soccer lost in an overtime thriller to rival Seton Hall. 

The St. John’s soccer team (4-4, 2-4 Big East) had revenge on its mind coming into Wednesday night’s contest against the No. 22 Seton Hall Pirates (6-1-2, 4-1-1 Big East) after the Red Storm lost a tight 1-0 contest to the Hall on February 27 in New Jersey.

It was a game that the Red Storm desperately needed to get their season back on track and stay on pace with the Top-2 teams in the Big East Eastern Division standings.

Only the top two teams from each division will qualify for the Big East Tournament in mid-April.

For 73 minutes everything was going according to plan for the Red Storm, then it all fell apart.

St. John’s would stunningly fall 3-2 in overtime despite holding a 2-0 lead earlier in the match.

This game started off slow with the first half being a stalemate as both sides did not get many looks on goal.

St. John’s one big chance came early in the third minute with a cross to the back post to a wide open Einar Lye, but the execution on the header was poor and it rolled harmlessly out of bounds.

However, the second half was a much different story.

ALSO READ: St. John’s reaches out to Indiana transfer guard Al Durham

The Red Storm got out on the front foot in the opening minutes of the 2nd half with two great chances to open the scoring through leading scorer Tani Oluwaseyi as he was played into the box by Einar Lye, but his shot was saved by Seton Hall’s Andreas Nota.

Then, the ball was not cleared well by the Pirates as Brandon Knapp would immediately send a cross back into Oluwaseyi, but his header would be saved once again.

St. John’s would continue to push and it would be rewarded with 2 goals in a 3-minute span.

First, in the 50th minute as Oluwaseyi was involved again as his header clanked off the post, but sophomore forward Wesley Leggett got onto the rebound for his third goal of the season.

Then in the 53rd minute, Jared Juleau would fire home a beautiful volley from the top of the box to put St. John’s up 2-0 for his second goal of the year.

In the 56th minute, the Pirates would cut the lead in half from the penalty spot, but all St. John’s needed to do was play solid defense for the final 30 minus to ensure a victory.

However, the Pirates would find an equalizer in the 74th minute from junior CJ Tibbling through an unbelievable chip shot that landed at No. 4 on ESPN’s SportsCenter Top-10 plays on Thursday morning.

Despite a great look in the final minutes by Rafael Bustamante to get a winning goal for the Red Storm, both teams would head to extra time tied at two. Seton Hall would get the winning goal with seven minutes left in extra time from freshman Raz Amir.

St. John’s soccer looking to respond quickly

It was the first time Seton Hall beat the Red Storm at Belson Stadium since 2014.

The heartbreaking 3-2 extra-time loss sinks the Red Storm to a .500 record on the season and two games below 500 in conference play.

ALSO READ: St. John’s reaches out to USF graduate transfer David Collins

St. John’s came into this season with National Championship aspirations, but without a strong finish to the season the Johnnies may miss the Big East Tournament and NCAA Tournament.

The Red Storm will next travel to Storrs, Connecticut on Saturday looking to sweep UConn and save its season at 2:00pm EST.