The frustration of back-to-back Big East losses to West Virginia and Georgetown left the St. John’s women’s soccer team determined to turn things around.
Two overtimes and four yellow cards later, the Red Storm managed to shutout the Wildcats in a scoreless tie last Sunday at Belson Stadium.
Coming off a difficult 2-1 loss to Georgetown Friday, the Red Storm (5-6-2, 1-3-1) responded with a passionate defensive effort throughout the game.
“As a coach you always try to preach learning from mistakes,” St. John’s head coach Ian Stone said. “I think we made some mistakes on Friday that we learned from today and to that extent we weren’t going to lose focus or concentration.”
Villanova and St. John’s combined for a total of 39 shots throughout the four periods but it proved to be useless as this game belonged to the goalkeepers.
For St. John’s, Jaime Beran and Rebecca Capinera continued their hot streak at goalkeeper, recording four and five saves respectively and leading the Storm to their fifth shut out of the season.
“Jaime made a fantastic save at the beginning of the first half,” Stone said. “Just great reflexes, reading things off the line, making good decisions. They both played really well.”
Villanova goalie Jillian Loyden recorded six saves playing the entire game.
The Red Storm viewed its offensive game as a positive in some ways, taking 18 shots, including 10 in the first half.
In just her second game back from injury, sophomore midfielder Krystle Jalalian got off a game-high 10 shots capping a shooting effort that hasn’t been part of the Johnnies game plan recently.
Senior Holly Ryder only got off four shots while junior Natasha Lee was only able to get off one.
The one negative of the game was an uncharacteristic trend of yellow cards handed out.
St. John’s offensive frustrations were showing throughout the contest as Lee, Jalalian, sophomore Susan Byrne and senior Andrea Coukoulis each were carded once.
“You have to be intelligent enough to know the referee is not going to take you talking back to him,” Stone said. “He’ll give you a yellow card and our players didn’t pick up on that but I’m glad they had enough discipline that they didn’t get red carded.”
The Johnnies will host a pair of home games this upcoming weekend against Providence and Connecticut. A crucial home stand that could have major implications on the Red Storm’s Big East record come Monday morning.
“I would like us to play with the same intensity,” Stone said. “I would like us to play defense the way we did and I think finishing in front of the goal. We got Krystle back and she took ten shots, so one of them has to go in. We’ve got to get better in front of the goal, put together that one final pass; I think we’ll create opportunities.”
