St. John's University Athletics
SJU Men's Soccer Falls to Virginia, 2-1
11/26/2000 12:00:00 AM | Men's Soccer
"Its very disappointing," St. Johns Head Coach Dave Masur said. "We gave up a goal early and we were chasing the rest of the way."
Playing on a wet field riddled with puddles from Saturdays pouring rain, Virginia jumped out to an early 1-0 lead when Ryan Gibbs took a free kick and found Steve Totten near the box 9:04 into the game. Totten received the pass and his shot from 20 yards out beat St. Johns senior goalkeeper Jeffrey Stoklosa (Newark, Del.) inside the right post.
The lead grew to 2-0 at the 26:04 mark when the Cavaliers took a free kick outside of the St. Johns box. A pair of a shots by Virginia freshman Alecko Eskandarian were stopped on saves by Stoklosa, but Gibbs picked up the rebound and put it in for a 2-0 lead.
The Red Storm had a chance to take a 1-0 lead early in the first half when junior Shalrie Joseph (Brooklyn, N.Y.) took a pass in the box and appeared ready to have a one-on-one. Joseph was pulled down from behind and his shot went wide as no foul was called. Minutes later, Virginia scored its first goal. St. Johns was, however, able to mount several scoring opportunities, with a header by Joseph nearly falling and shots by sophomore Matia Damiani (Foggia, Italy) and junior Rich Bradley (Bayport, N.Y.) were off the mark.
In the second half, the teams battled back and forth, but no one was able to capitalize until late.
With under two minutes left to play, junior Jeff Matteo (Stormville, N.Y.) dropped a pass to senior Adam Maurer (Spring Valley, Calif.) off of a free kick. Maurers shot hit the crossbar and dropped to the line, narrowing the margin to 2-1 with 1:33 to play. St. John's continued to push into the offensive zone, but was unable to get a clean shot off, giving UVa the 2-1 win.
Each team took 12 shots on goal and attempted two corner kicks.
