St. John’s soccer through to semifinals in OT win over Providence

Moment of magic in overtime sends St. John’s soccer to Big East semifinals. 

On Sunday afternoon, the St. John’s soccer team looked to continue an impressive regular season into the Big East Tournament.

The Red Storm finished the regular season in 4th place in the conference and played host to No. 5 seed Providence in a First Round matchup looking to punch a ticket into the Big East Tournament Semifinals.

St. John’s started out the first ten minutes well, dominating the possession.

Then, Providence would settle into the game and pegged the Red Storm back into their half.

Nobody would blame you if you mistook Providence as the home team given the way the Friars dominated possession for most of the game.

However,  St. John’s was very efficient with the very few opportunities that they had in this game.

At the 30th minute, St. John’s could not get out of their own half and generate much offense, but that all changed in a blink of an eye.

Head coach Ian Stone would substitute right back Brooke Boyd, who has been managing a knee injury throughout the latter part of the season, for Federique St. Jean.

After just 30 seconds into being in the game, the sophomore defender would receive a pass from Nicole Gordon in the box and fired a shot past Providence keeper Emma Bodmer to put the Red Storm up 1-0.

The goal was St. Jean’s second of the season and it was the first shot of the game for St. John’s.

In the second half, the Johnnies would be pinned back even more as Providence fired off five unanswered shots in the first ten minutes of the second half.

The Johnnies’ midfield could not connect to relieve the pressure off of the defense and Providence would keep on pushing for an equalizer.

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The equalizer would eventually come in the 78th minute through Amber Birchwell with a shot from the top of the box that went past Naya Lipkens and into the net.

The junior made five saves on the day, but just could not keep Birchwell’s strike out.

At that point, the Red Storm were just holding out for extra time in order to regroup from the constant seige laid on by the Friars in the second half.

It did not take long for the Johnnies to regroup as just 30 seconds into overtime, Isabelle Aviza took advantage of a bad backpass in the Friars backline and fired off a fantastic shot to give St. John’s the 2-1 win and send the Red Storm into the Big East Tournament Semifinals.

The win marks the first time St. John’s has advanced to the Big East Semis since 2016.

St. John’s soccer rolling into Big East Tournament Semifinals

The Johnnies will now head to Cinnicnatti to take on No.1 seed Xavier on Thursday at 5:00pm EST.

The Red Storm lost to the Musketeers earlier this season on the road by a score of 1-0  which kicked off a three game losing streak at the time.

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The last time St. John’s beat Xavier was back on October 21, 2018 in a 1-0 road win.

St. John’s will hope to pull off that kind of performance it had in 2018 and pull off a massive upset.

Recent history against the Musketeers is not bright, this is a St. John’s team that has won its last five straight games and always feel like they can pull off a big result, especially with one of the nation’s best scorers in Zsani Kajan.