A controversial offside call was the talking point in the St. John’s women’s soccerteam’s 0-0 draw with Dartmouth Friday night at Belson Stadium.
The Red Storm (6-1-1) looked as though they scored the winner with five minutes left in the game when Amy Marron found Rachel Daly, who fired past the Dartmouth (1-3-1) keeper, but the referee blew his whistle for offside and the goal was negated.
“It wasn’t an offsides,”St. John’s head coach Ian Stone said. “They called it on a player that was involved in the play and you would hope the officiating at this level would be better than that.”
The Johnnies struggled offensively in the first half. They had trouble controlling possession and looked out of sync with only two shots and zero corners in the half.
“Dartmouth played really well tonight,” Stone said. “But we weren’t aggressive on goal in the first half and everyone has seen how we can score when we are aggressive.”
Dartmouth (1-3-1) took control of the game early in the first half and kept control until halftime. Big Green defender Jackie Friedman had the best chance to score, as she had her shot ricochet off the post late in the half.
Dartmouth had 12 shots (eight on goal) in the first half. The sun was blaring in Red Storm goalkeeper Diana Poulin’s eyes but she still had eight saves in the first half alone.
“Diana played amazing tonight,” Stone said. “I told the team if it weren’t for Diana’s great game, we would have probably lost that game. I’m happy that we got another shutout, I just would have liked it if we could have scored.”
The Johnnies came out with more intensity in the second half and Amy Marron nearly scored the game’s first goal, but her chip failed to find the back of the net.
“We did play much better in the second half and overtime but I don’t know why we didn’t play that way in the beginning of the game,” Stone said.”
The Red Storm will look to forget its hiccup from Friday night when the team opens up Big East play Tuesday when Xavier travels to Belson.
We can’t have a bad half in conference play or we will get punished,” Stone said.
