No. 24 St. John’s to Close Regular Season with Butler on Senior Night

QUEENS, N.Y. – The No. 24 St. John's men's soccer team will wrap the 2021 regular season on Wednesday night when it hosts Butler for a 7 p.m. kick-off at Belson Stadium. The game will air live on the BIG EAST Digital Network with Rich Behan on the call.

Prior to the game, the athletic department will honor the careers of eight St. John's seniors and graduate students for their contributions to the program over the course of their Red Storm tenures.

The Red Storm cracked the United Soccer Coaches poll for the first time this season on Tuesday, checking in at no. 24 in the rankings. The Johnnies also moved from 24th to 21st in the TopDrawerSoccer poll and jumped three spots to no. 23 in the RPI.

Despite having already secured a BIG EAST Tournament berth, Wednesday's match will have significant postseason implications for the Johnnies. A win against the Bulldogs would give St. John's the opportunity to move into second place in the BIG EAST standings and receive a bye to the tournament semifinals. In order for this scenario to play out, St. John's must win and Providence must either draw or lose outright against Creighton on Wednesday night in Omaha. If Providence wins or St. John's produces any result other than a victory against Butler, the Red Storm will be the tournament's no. 3 seed and host a quarterfinal match on Saturday at Belson Stadium. Despite the Red Storm having plenty to play for, Butler's circumstances are somewhat more exigent, as the Bulldogs are part of a four-way tie for the final three postseason slots.

The Red Storm enters its regular season finale on the heels of two stellar performances, dominating Marquette, 4-0, at home on Oct. 23 before blanking DePaul, 2-0, in Chicago this past Saturday. A testament to the Red Storm's depth, six different Johnnies scored the team's six goals in those two victories.

St. John's goalkeeper Luka Gavran picked up his NCAA-best 10th shutout of the season on Saturday in The Windy City, needing to make only one save in a game that the Red Storm outshot the Blue Demons by a margin of 13-3, including a 7-1 margin in chances on target. The redshirt junior from Hamilton, Ont., is just the seventh goalkeeper in program history to record double-digit clean sheets in a single campaign and the first to do so since Derby Carrillo during the BIG EAST Championship season of 2009. Through games played on Monday, Gavran ranks fourth nationally in goals against average (0.54) and third in save percentage (.839).

Butler comes to Queens looking to snap a three-game winless streak following a scoreless draw with DePaul and back-to-back losses against Seton Hall and Creighton, the last two of which were at home. Prior to those most recent defeats, Butler had been undefeated in Indianapolis and 1-6-1 on the road.

Junior forward Wilmer Cabrera Jr. leads the Bulldogs in scoring this season, finding the back of the net five times with a pair of game-winners. Cabrera is one of only two Bulldogs with multiple goals on the year, as redshirt sophomore Tommy Visser has chipped in two goals and two assists for six points.

Butler has scored just 14 times in 16 games this season, the only team in the BIG EAST averaging fewer than one goal per contest.

Gabriel Gjergji has played every minute between the pipes this season for the Bulldogs, posting a 1.09 goals against average and a .735 save percentage.

St. John's is 8-2-1 all-time against Butler, including a perfect 3-0-0 mark in Queens. The series is more even since the Bulldogs joined the BIG EAST for the 2013 season, but the Red Storm still holds a 5-2-0 record during that span.

The Red Storm has won each of the last two meetings between the two sides, including a 1-0 victory in their most recent encounter on Sept. 28, 2019, in Indianapolis.

No. 24 St. John’s to Close Regular Season with Butler on Senior Night

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Players Mentioned

Luka Gavran

St. John's University Athletics