Sophomore Kieran McArdle scored four goals, including the final two, to lead the St. John’s lacrosse team over Long Island rival Stony Brook, 11-9, and return the Red Storm to the win column.
With the win the Red Storm recovered from a one-goal loss against then No. 6 Syracuse last week, which would have been its biggest win in program history, and finally bested a Stony Brook team that has cruised past them in the past two seasons.
“[The win] is great on a couple fronts,” head coach Jason Miller said. “Obviously rebounding after the Syracuse game was important.”
“It’s important for recruiting,” he added. “Our rosters have a lot of Long Island players. I’m sure all of the teams have a special pride in winning these games [between teams on Long Island].”
Sophomore Kevin Cernuto and seniors Harry Kutner and Terence Leach added two goals apiece to lead the Red Storm (3-2, 0-1 Big East) over the Seawolves in a game that came down to the last couple of minutes.
McArdle scored his third goal of the game with about six minutes left in the last period to put the Red Storm up two, and with just about two minutes left on the clock he found the back of the net again for his fourth to give the Johnnies the lead for good.
For the length of the game the two teams seemed evenly matched and traded the lead back and forth.
Down 5-4 entering the third quarter, the Johnnies tied the game when Kutner scored his second goal with 8:56 remaining in the period. Less than a minute later Stony Brook grabbed the lead back at 6-5, but another quick Red Storm goal tied the game again.
The third period ended with the teams level at 7-7, and the fourth continued at the same blow-for-blow pace.
The Johnnies and Seawolves also had similar possession during the game. Stony Brook won 35-34 on groundballs,
but the Red Storm’s Jordan Rothman won the faceoff battle, 14-10.
“I thought we were doing a lot of good things even though we were down 5-4 at the half. I told them [to] keep doing what we’re doing,” Miller said. “We had too many turnovers, but we were getting good scoring opportunities.”
McArdles’ fourth goal with just over the two minutes left gave the Red Storm a two-goal lead, a gap from which the Seawolves couldn’t recover.
With the win the Johnnies are back over .500 and looking to build on their momentum against Rutgers in conference play next Saturday.
“We going to work through the night, and have two really good practice days to prepare for Rutgers,” Miller said.
