St. John’s soccer posts winless week, Big East play rolls on

St. John’s soccer grabs pair of draws against Xavier and Creighton in a winless week 

The St. John’s soccer team posted a winless week coming off of a road loss to Seton Hall on October 1.

After splitting its first two conference games, the Red Storm took down Princeton in its non-conference finale by a 2-1 scoreline. The Johnnies jumped back into Big East Play falling to Seton Hall in New Jersey by a 2-1 scoreline.

The scoring in that match did not get going until the second half when a St. John’s own goal put the Pirates into the lead in the 59th minute.

St. John’s would respond with Antek Sienkiel scoring his team-leading sixth goal of the season in the 79th minute on a hard right-footed strike into the near post to make it a 1-1 game.

Despite St. John’s dominating the second-half proceedings with a 14-3 shot differential, 17-7 for the game, the home side would find a late winner through Andrea Borg in the 85th minute.

After the loss, the Red Storm returned to Queens for a big matchup with nationally-ranked Xavier (7-0-3 coming into the game) last Wednesday.

While every point matters in a conference campaign, the Red Storm really needed a win to kickstart their season. However, the visiting Musketeers dominated the first half, firing off 13 of their 15 shots in the game in the first 45 minutes of action.

St. John’s would tighten things up defensively in the second half, allowing just two Musketeer shots to their three but the Red Storm tallied just one shot on goal in the game to Xavier six.

Both goalkeepers in St. John’s Ryan Foley and Xavier’s Cole Jensen kept the shots out leading to a scoreless draw and preserving the visitors’ undefeated start to the season.

St. John’s soccer takes another point on the road at Creighton

After the stalemate in Queens, the Johnnies hit the road to Omaha to take on Creighton on Saturday night.

The first half was a back-and-forth affair in an open and attacking game with shots 8-6 at the break in favor of the Red Storm.

St. John’s would take a lead into the halftime break off of a 38th-minute strike by Einar Lye for his second goal of the season. The Red Storm executed a great counter-attack as freshman midfielder Juston Rainey earned his first collegiate assist, spraying a cross-field ball to Lye who did the rest.

St. John’s would hold the lead until the last gasps of the game, conceding a penalty kick in the 89th minute and Creighton’s Duncan Maguire would slot it home to preserve a tie late on for the home side.

The results bring St. John’s to a 3-6-3 (1-2-2, Big East) record in 2022 and Saturday night’s draw must hurt knowing they were so close to a huge road win.

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While the Johnnies are still stuck with just three wins overall this year, from a conference play standpoint, their saving grace is that no one has pulled away in the Big East standings.

St. John’s sits in 8th with five points, but is just one point off of a playoff spot and are two points off of a top-4 spot and hosting a Big East Quarterfinal.

The Red Storm will look to get back in the win column back in Queens on Wednesday at 7 PM against DePaul (3-3-5, 0-1-3 Big East) on Flo Sports. St. John’s has won three of the last four meetings against DePaul going back to 2017.