This past Saturday, Nov. 1, Villanova men’s soccer fell, 3-1, to St. John’s at home.
Villanova (5-6-5, 1-3-3 Big East) remains in sixth and last place in conference East Division standings after Saturday’s loss. The Red Storm (8-5-3, 3-3-1 Big East) stands fifth in the East Division.
The game did not start in Villanova’s favor, as the Wildcats surrendered an own-goal just five minutes and 50 seconds into play. An attempt to clear a St. John’s shot passed Villanova goalkeeper Alex Yagudayev to give the Red Storm an early advantage.
“We gave up some soft goals throughout the game,” head coach Mark Fetrow said. “[St. John’s] goals, we all felt, were some individual mistakes and just not clean enough. But I was proud of how the guys battled and how they fought back.”
In the first half, Villanova maintained offensive intensity as it sought to make up for the own-goal error. Across the first 45 minutes, Villanova held an 8-3 edge in shots. The Wildcats outshot the Red Storm, 20-10, for the game.
“It’s not many games where you see us outshoot our opponents, and we did that against St. John’s,” Fetrow said. “We just needed a little extra with our execution to connect on some of those scoring chances.”
Early in the second half, at 46:44, St. John’s Antonio Biggs scored another St. John’s goal. Then, at 55:36, Gabe Smyth extended the Red Storm’s margin to 3-0.
Following the third goal, the Villanova bench received a red card and Fetrow was ejected from the game. A minute later, Luca Fargnoli from St. John’s received a red card.
At 78:20, sophomore forward Fynn Lahrsen hit a top-right goal for Villanova, assisted by graduate midfielder Michael teDuits.
According to Fetrow, although Saturday’s match was a Big East competition, a winning result would not have advanced the Wildcats to the Big East Tournament.
“That was a game we needed to win because it had playoff implications,” Fetrow said. “But the way it turns out, if we had come away with three points, we still would have fallen short of making the playoffs.”
With only two games ahead of the Wildcats after Saturday’s defeat, Fetrow hopes to end the season on a high note with the playoffs out of sight.
“We have the opportunity to finish the season with a winning record,” Fetrow said. “We got an opportunity to get seven wins in the season, which would be a big improvement from last year and the year before that. We’ve got two games left, two games that we want to go out and have a good performance.”
On Tuesday, Nov. 4, Villanova defeated Holy Family, 6-0, at Higgins Soccer Complex for its final home game of the season. Villanova will now travel to Marquette (7-2-6, 1-0-6) on Friday, Nov. 7 (7 p.m., ESPN+), for a Big East matchup, marking the last game of the Wildcats’ 2025 season.
