St. John’s soccer: Jessica Garziano earns preseason honors

St. John’s soccer midfielder Jessica Garziano named to Preseason All-Big East Team. 

On Thursday the Big East Conference rolled out its preseason honors for women’s soccer and St. John’s soccer midfielder Jessica Garziano was named to the Preseason All-Big East Team.

The senior midfielder was the lone representative from the Johnnies to the all-conference squad.

The Melville, New York native also made the United Soccer Coaches Women’s Players to Watch for this season on Friday.

Garziano scored a goal and dished out 10 assists in Fall 2021 and will look to pair more of the scoring from the shortened Spring 2021 campaign when she scored a team-high seven tallies in 12 games to go along with the great distribution from last season.

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The main priority for success for St. John’s this season is replacing the departing Zsani Kajan’s production after the star scored 17 goals in her final season with Red Storm.

The void at the striker position may be a large reason why the Red Storm were picked to finish 5th in Big East in the conference’s Preseason Coaches Poll despite the Johnnies coming off of arguably their best season in program history.

St. John’s advanced to the Big East title game for the first time since 1994 and catapulted that success to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament for the first time in program history while retaining many of the key pieces of that roster.

Garziano is certainly one of the first few names that can help fill that void with her experience, distribution, and runs through the midfield.

St. John’s soccer looking to replicate success

Ava Collins, Isabelle Aviza, and Nicole Gordon are some others that have shown the capability to contribute offensively, however, the only question will be who will play through the middle of the forward line.

Jailene Dejesus split time there last season and Oklahoma transfer Molly Feighan could be a candidate given her experience in collegiate soccer.

The Pleasant Valley, New York native does not have eye-popping numbers coming into Queens, but clearly the staff sees potential there with more playing time and fitting into Ian Stone’s system.

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We will find out soon as the 2022 regular season for St. John’s will get underway this Thursday at 7:00p.m. in Belson Stadium against Saint Joseph’s after the Johnnies wrapped up its preseason with an exhibition scoreless draw against Fordham last Tuesday and a 2-1 win over UMass on Saturday.

This will be the second all-time meeting between Saint Joseph’s and St. John’s with the first coming last August which resulted in a 5-0 Johnnie win.