St. John’s soccer suffers first loss of the season against Harvard

The St. John’s soccer team suffered its first loss of the season against Harvard in overtime

On Sunday, the St. John’s soccer team suffered its first loss of the season against Harvard by a scoreline of 3-2 in overtime.

The Red Storm started out the game poorly as the Crimson controlled the pace early on and St. John’s defensive intensity wasn’t high enough in the early stages of the match.

Harvard would take a 1-0 lead in the 5th minute through a fantastic strike that went off the crossbar and in by forward, and leading scorer, Angela Caloia.

As great as the strike was, the Red Storm defense did not shut Caloia down well enough as well as  not dealing with the initial cross well enough.

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The play exemplified the aforementioned lack of defensive intensity in the first half.

St. John’s was barely able to create anything offensively, coupled with poor passing and smothering defense by Harvard.

It was arguably the worst half St. John’s played this season.

The deficit would grow as Taylor Fasnacht scored in the 29th minute to give Harvard a 2-0 lead.

St. John’s soccer picks up intensity after halftime

In the second half, the Red Storm filpped a switch and came out with a much more aggressive approach on the defensive end, disrupting Harvard’s smooth passing game that had dominated the match up until that point.

It allowed St. John’s to start building some momentum and gain a foothold in the game.

The Johnnies momentum would result in plenty of set piece opportunties and the Red Storm took advantage to get back into the game.

St. John’s would use two corner kicks in the matter of four minutes to erase the 2-0 halftime deficit.

The goals were scored by Isabelle Aviza in the 62nd minute of the game for her first of the year and Brooke Boyd in the 66th minute for her second goal of the season.

If St. John’s were going to suffer their first loss of the season, it wasn’t going to be without a fight.

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Harvard struggled dealing with the Red Storm’s set pieces to the point that it required a goalie change.

Despite the change, the Red Storm almost scored on a third corner not too long after Boyd’s equalizer.

The corner kick went through the hands of substitute goalie Sammantha Schmitz, but the Red Storm couldn’t capitalize on the error.

Harvard would regain its composure and dominate the final 20 minutes of play, but the Red Storm would hold firm and force overtime.

With three minutes to go in the first overtime period, midfielder Hannah Bebar would glide through the midfield and execute a beautiful chip from the right hand side over the head of Naya Lipkens to give the Crimson the extra-time win.

It was a valiant effort for the Red Storm coming back from 2-0 down, but nonetheless its the first loss of the season and move to a 3-1-1 record on the season.

The Red Storm will next take on the University of Delaware on the road this Thursday at 7:00pm EST on FloSports.