Pirates Take Down St. John's, 1-0 in BIG EAST Opener

Saturday, February 27

South Orange, N.J.

3 P.M.

Seton Hall University

3-0-1, 1-0-0

St. John's

2-1-0, 0-1-0

St. John's (NY)

Seton Hall

Pirates Take Down St. John's, 1-0 in BIG EAST Opener

2/27/2021 6:22:00 PM | Men's Soccer

Box Score BOX SCORE (PDF)

South Orange, N.J. - The Seton Hall men's soccer team earned three huge points in the BIG EAST standings with a 1-0 victory over St. John's on Saturday. The Pirates remain undefeated on the season and improve to 3-0 at Owen T. Carroll Field.

Seton Hall's offensive attack came out firing with two shots on goal in the first two minutes of the match. Fortunately for the Pirates, the second of those two shots found the back of the net for the very early lead.

Turning Point
Only 1:38 into the game, Paavo Riihijarvi (Oulu, Finland) beat a Red Storm defender just outside of the box before getting off a right-footed shot that beat the St. John's keeper to the lower corner of the net to put the Pirates up, 1-0. JP Marin (Briarwood, N.Y.) was credited with the assist on what would become the game-winning goal.

Goals
2' - Riijiharvi (1) from Marin

Inside the Numbers

The Pirates held the high-powered St. John's offensive attack which had six goals in its two prior games to eight total shots, of which, only one was on net.
The Red Storm came into the matchup ranked 15^th and 21^st by College Soccer News and TopDrawerSoccer, respectively.
The shutout was the second of the season for the ANDREAS NOTA and the seventh in his career. Nota also combined in the shutout win over Fairleigh Dickinson.
The goal for Riihijarvi was his first in a Pirate uniform.
With the assist, Marin has now picked up the helper on each of the Pirates last three goals dating back to Wednesday's win over Fairleigh Dickinson.
The Pirates outshot the Red Storm 18-8.

News & Notes

Seton Hall improves to 3-0-1 on the season, 1-0-0 in the BIG EAST and 3-0-0 at home.
The Pirates have now held opponents scoreless for 302 consecutive minutes.
This is the first time since 2005 that the Pirates have earned three consecutive shutout victories when they opened the season with blanks over Birmingham Southern, Air Force and Adelphi.
The last Seton Hall win over St. John's prior to Saturday was in 2014, also a 1-0 victory.
Seton Hall is now outscoring opponents 6-1 in the first half this season.

Up Next
The Pirates will hit the road when they travel to take on 2019 National Champion, Georgetown. Kickoff is set for 2 p.m.