The St. John’s men’s soccer team finished its season opening road trip with their second consecutive shutout, beating Boston University 1-0 on Sat., Sept. 3.
The Red Storm outshot the Terriers, 17-10, while BU didn’t register a shot on goal. Sophomore goalkeeper Rafael Diaz was credited with his second straight shutout.
“We are excited because we had a tough game down at William& Mary and we were able to win that and come up to Boston and play against BU, a traditional and very strong program,” said head coach Dr. Dave Masur. “We played on the road in front of a pretty crowded house for their home opener and we were able to win 1-0, so it was good.”
Junior Midfielder Jack Bennett, a junior college transfer, scored the game winning goal in the 34th minute. After getting past two defenders on the left side, Bennett beat a third defender and sent a shot to the far post and past goalkeeper Nick Thomson for the score.
It was the second straight game that Bennett scored the game winning goal. Bennett scored the first goal in Thursday’s 3-0 win over No. 8 William & Mary.
“Jack Bennett scored both winning goals and played the left side well,” said Masur. “We felt we got a lot of scoring opportunities which was good, and defensively we were very organized.”
The Terriers got off three shots in the final five minutes of regulation but all three shots were blocked by the Red Storm backline.
“In the backline a bunch of guys did well,” said Masur We are still trying to get some consistency going forward and consistency in midfield. Overall we felt that we were happy to win against such good programs like BU and William & Mary on the road.”
The Terriers were lead by midfielder Stephen Knox, who had three shots and played the whole 90 minutes. Terrier goalkeeper Nick Thomson saved four shots.
The Red Storm and Terriers were tied with four corner kicks apiece but the Terriers were unable to get shots off of them. The Terriers committed eight fouls to the Red Storm’s six.
The win helped propel St. John’s (2-1-0) into the No. 25 spot in both the NSCAA and Soccer America polls.
St. John’s heads back to Queens for its home opener at Belson Stadium on Sept. 9th at 8 p.m. when they host the Harvard Crimson. Two days later, the Johnnies host the Yale Bulldogs on Sept. 11 at 7:30pm.
