St. John’s soccer falls short of capping off magical run as the Hoyas win Big East Title.
The St. John’s soccer team came up just short of capping off a magical run in the Big East Tournament, falling to the Georgetown Hoyas 1-0 in Sunday’s Championship Game.
Sunday’s win marks Georgetown’s fifth Big East Championship in six years.
St. John’s certainly did not make it easy and showed they deserved to be in this match in their first Big East title game appearance since 1994 and just the second time in program history.
St. John’s, of course, won their only Big East Championship back in 1994 taking down Boston College.
Unfortunately, history would not repeat itself at Corcoran Field for St. John’s on Sunday.
The match started out as well as the Johnnies could have wanted. Georgetown was always going to have more possession and dominated it in the first half, but St. John’s did well to limit the Hoyas’ set piece and corner kick opportunities.
While the Hoyas managed to get off three shots to none for St. John’s, Naya Lipkens did not have any particularly dangerous chances to deal with.
Despite the impressive defensive effort in the first half, St. John’s head coach Ian Stone stated on the broadcast that he felt his team can do better in generating offense and getting at the Georgetown backline.
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The Red Storm certainly heard Stone’s message coming out of the break as the passing was much more crisp than in the first half.
As the second half progressed, the Johnnies started to generate one or two decent attacks that started to balance things out compared to the one way traffic in the first half.
Angelina Scoma would get the first shot of the game for the Red Storm in the 49th minute, but the shot off of a cross gets saved by Allie Augur.
Georgetown then responded with a massive chance from midfielder Julia Leas as her shot from the top of the box hit the outside of the post in the 54th minute.
The Hoyas would keep up the pressure and eventually took the lead in the 63rd minute through a header from center back Sydney Cummings off of a corner kick.
The goal was similar to when the two teams met at Belson Stadium on October 10 as Gia Vicari scored the winner on that occasion, also coming off a corner kick.
Cummings’ goal ended up being the difference as she was fantastic on the field with the tail of shutting down the nation’s second-leading scorer in Zsani Kajan.
The Red Storm had their best look of the game in the 84th minute when Jessica Garziano burst forward past two defenders and into the box.
The junior fired a shot towards the far post, but Augur made a fantastic diving finger-tip save to her left to barely keep the shot out and prevent the game from heading to extra-time.
St. John’s soccer hoping for more games this postseason
Regardless of Sunday’s result, this has been a fantastic season for the St. John’s soccer program and one of the best year’s in recent memory, and it still might not be over.
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The Johnnies sit at No. 46 in the NCAA RPI rankings, just inside the NCAA Tournament field.
St. John’s is in a decent spot for an at-large bid and the Red Storm will find out their NCAA Tournament fate with the Women’s Soccer Tournament Selection Show taking place on Monday at 4:30pm EST.