After the final whistle blew and the game had concluded, Ian Stone sat in his chair for five minutes in disbelief.

After shutting out No. 18 Marquette for 85
minutes, the St. John’s women’s soccer team (12-5-1, 6-4-1) gave up a goal in the final minutes and fell to the Golden Eagles, 1-0.

“Marquette is a very good team and I thought it was a pretty even matchup,” said Stone. “They had a couple
opportunities and I thought that it could have gone either way. I thought they played hard. Hopefully, we can learn from this and be able to move on because we will be in another tight game against good teams and we’ll try to end up on
the other side of the result and win it.”

The Red Storm played the Golden Eagles very evenly throughout the duration of
the game.

Defender Courtney Lane led the way for the Red Storm
on offense five shots while Vaila Barsley added two shots.

“Courtney’s got such a left cannon of a shot that we want to try to get herinvolved in the attack as much
as possible,” said Stone.

The defensive unit of Lane, Valia Barsley, Nicole Doran, Tara Mendoza and goalkeeper Kristin Russell had a solid game against Marquette’s offense.

Russell finished the game with nine saves, while the
defense held Marquette to nine first-half shots.

“I think in the first half we came out well, Doran said. “We had possession of the ball and really took it to them. In the second half, we really didn’t find our rhythm and they had
one lucky break.”

Late in the second half, Red Storm defender Vaila
Barsley went down from a tackle and Marquette took advantage of the Red Storm’s shorthanded defense.

On the next play, Russell faced a flurry of shots and Marquette’s Becky Ryan was able to capitalize off one of Russell’s blocks for the game’s only goal.

“Vaila went down and was injured and they had their
counter attack,” Doran said. “We just got caught up and next
thing I knew they scored.”

Despite the loss, the Red Storm earned the No. 2 seed in the Big East American Division and earned a bye in the first round of the
conference tournament. They will host Georgetown on Sunday at Belson Stadium.

“Because of the schedule we’ve had all season,” Stone said, “We know that each game is going to be tight and we’re prepared for it.

“Fortunately, we have a pretty fit and mature group that has been through this all before, and as long as we can keep defending well, we can win.”

Doran and Lane said that this game will be beneficial to the Red Storm going into the Big East Tournament.

“I think this game will give us more energy and keep us strong,” she said. “We’re a strong unit and nothing can break us down. Yes, this was our senior day, but this is going to give us more strength going into the
postseason.”

Lane added, “This game isn’t going to make or break
us. We’ll move on.”