St. John's Runs by Holy Cross, 2-0

Sunday, September 11

Queens, N.Y. (Belson Stadium)

7:00 PM

St. John's University

3-1-1

Holy Cross

3-2-0

Holy Cross

St. John's

9/11/2016 12:00:00 AM | Men's Soccer

Box Score

Sept. 11, 2016

Final Stats | Photo Gallery | Box Score (PDF) | SJU-TV Postgame Recap

QUEENS, N.Y. - Led by a pair of goals from sophomore Filippo Ricupati, the St. John's Red Storm put forth a dominant performance against Holy Cross on Sunday evening, defeating the Crusaders, 2-0, at Belson Stadium.

Ricupati, a forward from Milan, Italy, found the back of the net in the 66th and 89th minutes for the Red Storm, helping the Johnnies move to 3-1-1 on the season. St. John's is off to its best start since the NCAA Tournament season of 2013, when the team began the campaign with five wins in six tries.

Mike Prosuk and Harry Cooksley both tallied assists on the evening. Cooksley, a junior transfer from Limstone College, now leads the team with seven points on the season and has registered at least one point in four-straight games.

"I thought we played a great first half, got a lot chances," said Dr. Dave Masur. "They did a good job defending. We were a good possession team. Holy Cross has had a good record, they have some veteran players and they're well coached. We were concerned about their ability to pass, but we closed down extraordinarily well.

"We defended well and had some good moments going forward and then we were able to get a goal to get us up 1-0 and then going forward kind of hung on and countered with [Mike] Prosuk to Harry [Cooksley] to Filippo [Ricupati]. Now we have march forward and look toward Marquette."

Andrew Withers recorded his first solo shutout of the season and the team's third clean sheet overall. Withers became the first Red Storm keeper to log a complete game in 2016, stopping the one Holy Cross shot that found its target.

For the match, the Red Storm dominated the Crusaders (3-2-0) on the stat sheet, registering 25 shots to Holy Cross' four and earning seven corners to their one. At the intermission, the Johnnies held a 13-0 advantage in shots and a 5-0 lead in corners.

After maintaining the upper hand in the possession game by a wide margin to no result over the first 65 minutes of play, St. John's finally broke through when Ricupati and Prosuk connected to put the Red Storm up 1-0. With the ball loose in the box and his back to the goal, Ricupati headed it to his teammate Prosuk just outside 18. The 6-6 sophomore from Westfield, N.J., wasted no time getting it right back to Ricupati, who blasted it through a defender and past the keeper to put his team on top.

Just over 20 minutes later with the Red Storm holding the Crusader threat at bay and looking for an insurance goal, Cooksley played a magnificent through ball into the box for Ricupati, who finished on the ground to give the Red Storm the 2-0 advantage with which it would end the contest.

Cooksley registered nine shots in just 59 minutes of action on Sunday. Ricupati fired off six shots of his own, while Prosuk added four and Alistair Johnston chipped in three.

Wilhelm Nilsson, Thomas Mickoski and Simon Tchoukriel all recorded 90-minute efforts on the back line, limiting the Crusaders to just four shots for the game.

The Red Storm will next be in action on Saturday, Sept. 17, opening up BIG EAST play on the road at Marquette. That contest in scheduled for an 8:05 p.m. ET kick-off and will be broadcast on the BIG EAST Digital Network.