Sports

St. John’s falls to Marquette on late goal

Ian Stone sat in his chair in disbelief.

His St. John’s women’s soccer team shut out No. 18 ranked Marquette for 85 minutes, only to give up a late goal and fall to the Golden Eagles, 1-0, on Senior Day in their Big East season finale at Belson Stadium Sunday.

“Hopefully, we can learn from this and be able to move on because we will be in [other] tight games against good teams and we’ll try to end up on the other side of the result and win it,” Stone said.

The Golden Eagles goal came in the 86th minute when St. John’s goalkeeper Kristin Russell faced a flurry of shots in their offensive end and Marquette’s Becky Ryan was able to capitalize on one of the rebounds. On the previous play, Red Storm defender Vaila Barsley was hurt on a slide tackle and was out when the goal was scored.

“Vaila went down and was injured and they had their counter attack,” defender Nicole Doran said. “We just got caught up and next thing I knew they scored.”

The Red Storm played Marquette (13-4-2, 7-2-2) very evenly throughout. Defender Courtney Lane led the way for the Red Storm on offense with five shots and Barsley added two shots.

“Courtney’s got such a left cannon of a shot that we want to try to get her involved in the attack as much as possible,” said Stone.

The defense had a solid game and Russell finished with nine saves.

“I think in the first half we came out well,” Doran said. “We had possession of the ball and really took it to them. In the second half, we really didn’t find our rhythm and they had one lucky break.”

Despite the loss, the Red Storm (12-5-1, 6-4-1) earned the No. 2 seed in the Big East American Division and with it a bye in the first round of the Big East tournament. They host Georgetown at 1 p.m. next Sunday at Belson Stadium. The Red Storm, who were ranked as high as 11th in one national poll at one point, are in the midst of one of the best regular seasons in program history.

The close loss may be beneficial in the long run.

“I think this game will give us more energy and keep us strong,” Doran said. “We’re a strong unit and nothing can break us down.”