VILLANOVA, Pa. – Villanova jumps back into league play on Saturday night when it visits St. John's at 7 p.m. The match will be streamed via the BIG EAST Digital Network from Belson Stadium in Jamaica, Queens.
The Wildcats (0-4-4 overall, 0-1 BIG EAST) hope to build on the positives that were on display on Tuesday afternoon in a 2-2 draw with No. 20 Penn at the Higgins Soccer Complex.
"It does give us some momentum," said Wildcats' head coach
Mark Fetrow of a hard-fought battle with the Quakers. "It's still so early in the season with rankings and everything, but I think the most important piece is that Penn is just really well-coached. Brian Gill does a great job with their organization and structure.
"For us, going into the Big East, to have that in our back pocket, that we just went toe to toe with a ranked opponent and had a good performance, gives us confidence heading into this Big East game against St. John's."
Villanova executed with precision to generate its two goals on Tuesday, each scored by a graduate transfer.
Michael teDuits (Penn) snagged the first one against his former mates and that was followed by an impressive strike from
Jason Bouregy (Rutgers).
"The two goals we had in that first half were good goals," Fetrow stated. "By that I mean, they came off transition or when we focused on building the attack by combining passes. That's what we want our style to look like. That was a positive for us."
In the second half, the Wildcats were a tad more conservative but kept the Quakers off the scoreboard despite bouts of Penn pressure.
"I thought that was a sign of growth," stated Fetrow. "We made the simple plays to clear the ball away from danger when they were applying pressure."
The Wildcats have persevered over the first half of the regular season despite prolonged absences due to injury from key performers, including sophomore midfielder/back
Luke Martelli (has yet to log a regular season minute), senior forward
Balthi Saunders (limited to 152 minutes in four games thus far), and grad transfer
Cole Knapp, who started the first five games at center back before being forced to the sidelines for the last three contests.
St. John's leads the all-time series against the Wildcats (26-11-6) but Villanova did notch a 4-0 triumph at Belson Stadium in 2022. The two sides played to a 1-1 draw last season at the Higgins Soccer Complex.
The Red Storm carries a 2-4-3 overall mark into this game. It dropped a 1-0 decision at Xavier in its BIG EAST opener on Sept. 20. It earned draws against ranked opponents North Carolina (No. 12) and Marshall (No. 6) earlier in the campaign.
