Even after giving up an early goal, Derby Carrillo was confident the St. John’s men’s soccer team would find a way to get the equalizer.
“From the time we first went down I thought we’re going to get it, we’ll get opportunities and we did,” the senior goalkeeper said. “I was hoping we’d get that goal, go to overtime, get another one or go to PKs. Hopefully I’d step up and we’d win the game.”
Carrillo was right, to a point. The 13th-seeded Red Storm had their chances, but the tying goal would never come. Instead, Karl Reddick’s eighth-minute tally held up and Boston College advanced to the third round of the NCAA tournament with a 1-0 win last night in front of 1,939 fans at Belson Stadium.
A year after advancing to the College Cup semifinals, the Johnnies were bounced in the second round, the Eagles snapping their 21-game home unbeaten streak that dated back to Nov. 2007.
The young Eagles, which started six freshmen, advances to the third round to meet Drake, which upset No. 4 Ohio State, 1-0, earlier Sunday.
“We carried most of the game, but couldn’t really get the real kind of quality, the energy level to get a goal,” St. John’s coach Dave Masur said. “They blocked a bunch of shots, cleared some balls off the line.”
BC (14-8-0) scored the lone goal it needed on a counterattack in the eighth minute. Kyle Bekker found an unmarked Reddick, who settled the low cross and fired the ball past Carrillo from 12 yards.
It was Reddick’s first goal of the year.
“In high school I was a forward so I kind of know how to put the ball in the net,” the junior midfielder said. “But it’s been a while since then.”
From there, longtime BC coach Ed Kelly said his team hung in defensively, weathering the Red Storm.
“They gave us a real run for the money,” he said. “We got a goal early and we defended for our lives.”
St. John’s (9-3-9) pushed its numbers forward, but struggled in the attacking third.
“At times we didn’t attack the flanks as well as we needed to,” Masur said. “When we did attack the flanks I thought we were successful, whether it was getting in secondary crosses, linking play or switching around. I don’t know if we always attacked the flanks as efficiently as we would have liked.”
The closest the Johnnies would come to tying the game was Kyle Hoffer’s disallowed goal because of offside in the 61st minute. Twenty minutes later, Tadeu Terra rolled a shot just wide to BC keeper Justin Luthy’s left. One minute later, freshman Omar Edwards turned and hit a volley wide of the net and Trevor Chiduku had a 90th-minute shot blocked in front of the net during a wild scramble.
“I was hoping we’d go pretty far,” Carrillo said. “We had a good group this year. I was expecting to go all the way. It’s unfortunate though. That’s soccer for you.”