Saint John's soccer begins the 2025 season by hosting Nebraska Wesleyan at 11:30 a.m. Friday, Aug. 29, at Haws Field. The Johnnies then travel to face Concordia for a non-conference game at 1 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 30, in Moorhead. 

LIVE COVERAGE
-Friday, Aug. 29 in Collegeville: Live Stats | Live Video
-Saturday, Aug. 30 in Moorhead: Live Stats | Live Video

A LOOK AT THE JOHNNIES: A new era of Johnnie soccer begins with the 2025 season.

New head coach Tudor Flintham – a 2006 SJU graduate and a former standout player and assistant coach at the school – returns to his alma mater after leading MIAC-rival Gustavus Adolphus to five conference championships over the past six full seasons.

Flintham – who was named SJU's director of soccer/head coach this past December – inherits a team that finished 6-8-1 a year ago, missing the MIAC playoffs for just the second time in the past 12 years.

His team will be tested as the Johnnies' 19-game regular-season schedule includes three NCAA Division III tournament teams (MIAC foes St. Olaf and Gustavus and non-conference opponent Wisconsin-Superior) from a year ago.

Ten of those 19 games are scheduled to be played at home in Collegeville.

Here is a more in-depth look at how SJU is expected to stack up this fall:

Back Where It All Began
Flintham was the associate head coach at SJU from 2010-14 and also served as an assistant coach at Saint Benedict from 2012-14. 

He replaced John Haws '99, who resigned in the summer of 2024 following 14 seasons as head coach. Noel Quinn held the job on an interim basis last fall.

The Johnnies totaled a 46-34-11 record (28-16-6 MIAC) with two MIAC Playoff championship game appearances during Flintham's five seasons on staff, while the Bennies went 37-13-6 (23-9-1 MIAC) in their three seasons with MIAC regular-season and playoff titles and an NCAA Tournament appearance in 2013.

A native of Norwich, England, Flintham registered 59 points (20g/19a) in 64 career games for the Johnnies from 2002-05. He captained SJU to an MIAC playoff championship, led the conference in both goals and assists and earned All-MIAC, Academic All-MIAC and All-Region honors in 2005. Flintham earned his master's degree in sport management from St. Cloud State in 2014.

Familiar Assistants
Flintham tapped two former Johnnie goalkeepers, Kevin Lebahn '16 and Evan Siefken '25, to complete his coaching staff in March. Lebahn is the first full-time assistant soccer coach at SJU, while Siefken will be the program's head goalkeeping coach.

Lebahn had been the head women's soccer coach at Nebraska Wesleyan the past two seasons and was the men's soccer assistant coach, goalkeeper coach and women's assistant soccer coach at Iowa Western Community College from 2021-23. Iowa Western ended the 2021 season with a 16-1-2 record under his leadership, winning the NJCAA national championship.

Prior to Iowa Western, Lebahn served as an assistant/goalkeeper coach for the men's soccer team at Augsburg for five seasons (2016-20). The Auggies recorded their highest national ranking in program history – No. 9 in 2019 – and qualified for the NCAA tournament in 2018. He also has coaching experience at Sporting Nebraska Football Club in Omaha and as an assistant for the Sporting Nebraska United women's soccer teams. Lebahn was the first assistant at Minneapolis City SC in 2020-21, where he directed the team to conference regular-season and tournament championships and the national quarterfinals.

As a student-athlete at SJU, Lebahn ended his career with a 34-20-6 record, including 16 complete-game shutouts, a 1.08 GAA and a .803 save percentage (265 saves) in 60 games. As a senior in 2015, Lebahn became the first SJU goalkeeper to earn All-MIAC first-team honors since Kevin Kohnen in 2000 after he went 12-4-2 with a 0.87 GAA and a .797 save percentage (63 saves) overall.

Siefken earned his third United Soccer Coaches All-Region honor in 2024. He became the Johnnies' first three-time All-MIAC selection since Michael Coborn '14, a four-time honoree from 2010-13, and the first at goalkeeper since Terry Leiendecker '83 (1980-82). Siefken started all 15 games and played all but 11:15 in net, posting a 6-8-1 mark with three shutouts, a 1.68 GAA and a .752 save percentage (76 saves) last fall. 

He ended his career with a 26-30-9 record, 16 shutouts (another shared), a 1.36 GAA and a .797 save percentage (345 saves) in 65 career games.

Jason Anhorn joins the duo for his second season as a volunteer assistant coach. A 1996 graduate of Concordia-Moorhead, Anhorn was a member of the Cobbers' 1995 MIAC championship team. He has coached youth soccer for CMYSA for the past decade, helping lead his 16U team to a state title in 2023. 

New Netminder
As mentioned above, the Johnnies need to replace a four-year starter in Siefken this fall. The frontrunners in goal include a pair of freshmen in 6-foot-6 Austin Ertel (Brownsburg, Ind./Lawrence Central) and Cole Hanson (Urbandale, Iowa). Ertel was a two-time All-Metropolitan Interscholastic Conference pick, while Hanson graduated high school in 2024 and spent last year at the Spain Soccer Academy in Seville, Spain.

Returning Experience
SJU returns 12 Johnnies who played at least 10 of the team's 15 games last season, as well as four of the team's top five scorers. In total, the 2025 team welcomes back 60.6 percent (63 of 104) of its points, 61.8 percent (21 of 34) of the goals scored and 58.3 percent (21 of 36) of the assists from last fall.

Individually, sophomore forward Ronan O'Connor (Woodbury, Minn./Hill-Murray) played all 15 games (13 starts) and led the team in goals (6) and points (14). He tied senior forward Carter Hermanson (St. Paul, Minn./Holy Angels) for the team lead with 13 shots on goal. Hermanson tied for third on the team with junior midfielder Danny Boyle (Downers Grove, Ill./Benet Academy) with three goals and two assists each. Senior forward Alex Bowman (Elk River, Minn./Rogers) was second with 12 points (4g/4a) in just 12 games (10 starts).

Four seniors who played 14 games or more last fall also return. Forward Connor Drong (St. Cloud, Minn./Cathedral) posted five points (2g/1a) in 14 contests, while forward Riley Buxell (Afton, Minn./Stillwater Area) tallied two assists in 15 games (11 starts). Two defenders, Caden Ligman (14 games, 11 starts; St. Paul, Minn./Highland Park) and Foster Conlin (started all 15 games; Mooresville, N.C./Mounds View) were stalwarts on the backline but did not record a point. SJU also returns senior defender Noah Hermanson (St. Paul, Minn./Holy Angels), Carter's twin brother who was one of three players that started all 18 games in 2023. He suffered an injury during spring practice and missed all of the 2024 season.

Three returning sophomores found the scoresheet as freshmen last fall. Midfielder Matt Holmes (Edina, Minn.) led the quartet with five points (1g/3a) in 14 games and defender Brendan Hainey (Minneapolis, Minn./Holy Angels) played all 15 games (13 starts) and registered four assists. Defender Luke Madden (St. Paul, Minn./Cretin-Derham Hall), meanwhile, tallied the assist on the game-tying goal and scored the game-winner with 1.4 seconds remaining in the thrilling 4-3 victory over St. Scholastica in the home finale.

Nine Non-Conference Games
The Johnnies play six of their nine non-conference games to open the season, beginning with the season opener against Nebraska Wesleyan first on Aug. 29.

 SJU travels to Concordia the following day for its first of two non-conference games against MIAC opponents. SJU hosts Crown and Bethany Lutheran Sept. 3 and 7 before traveling to North Central (Minn.) and Wisconsin-River Falls the following week. 

A second non-conference meeting with St. Scholastica interrupts the MIAC schedule on Oct. 7, and the non-conference portion of the schedule concludes with a pair of home matches against Wisconsin-Superior (Oct. 17) and Wisconsin-Stout (Oct. 22).

The MIAC Schedule
SJU begins MIAC play with a pair of home games, Sept. 17 vs. St. Scholastica and Sept. 20 vs. Bethel, before Flintham faces his old program Sept. 27 at Gustavus. The Johnnies return to Collegeville for back-to-back contests against Augsburg (Sept. 30) and last year's MIAC co-champions, St. Olaf (Oct. 4). 

The aforementioned non-conference trip to St. Scholastica Oct. 7 begins a three-match road stretch that includes Macalester (Oct. 11) and Carleton (Oct. 15). The Cobbers and Johnnies meet for a second time Oct. 25, this time at Haws Field, before ending the regular-season schedule at Saint Mary's (Oct. 28) and Hamline (Nov. 1).

MIAC Playoffs
The first round of the six-team MIAC Playoffs is scheduled for Monday, Nov. 3, and the MIAC semifinals follow on Thursday, Nov. 6. The MIAC championship game, with the conference's automatic berth to the NCAA Division III tournament on the line, is set for Saturday, Nov. 8. The high seed hosts in all three rounds.

A LOOK AT THE PRAIRIE WOLVES: Nebraska Wesleyan went 11-8-1 (5-3 ARC) last fall before falling in the ARC championship game to Wartburg (Iowa), 1-0. The Prairie Wolves were picked to finish fourth in the ARC preseason coaches' poll and return 12 players who recorded a point last season. At the top of that list is fifth-year forward senior Caden Tubaugh, who finished last season with eight points (3g/2a). Junior defender Thomas Pisasale added seven points (3g/1a).

THE LAST TIME: Saint John's soccer scored two unanswered goals in the second half to win the last meeting between the two programs – the 2019 season opener – by a 2-1 score over Nebraska Wesleyan on Aug. 31 in Collegeville.

Forward Kagan Foster '19 scored what proved to be the game-winning goal on a penalty kick with 10:41 to play. Midfielder Leighton Lommel '19 earned the penalty after he was taken down by the NWU goalkeeper.

 Brian Pacceli tied the game at 1-1 with his first collegiate goal in the 55th minute. Lommel fed Ben Becker '19 up the left side into a 2-on-1 situation and Pacceli beat the goalkeeper straight on.

The Johnnies held statistical advantages in shots (17-8, 8-3 on goal) and corner kicks (8-2).

Royce Austen gave the Prairie Wolves a 1-0 lead on a 25-yard shot, his second goal in as many days, with 1:30 remaining in the first half. Goalkeeper Payton Spencer '20 made two saves to earn the win.

SERIES HISTORY: The Johnnies are 6-2 against the Prairie Wolves, including a 3-0 advantage in Collegeville.

A LOOK AT THE COBBERS: Concordia-Moorhead finished 1-13-3 (0-8-2 MIAC) in 2024 and returns five of the eight Cobbers who recorded a point or more. Junior defenseman Ricco Rolle led the way with four points – a pair of goals – and senior forward Gannon Brooks is the only other returning player to record multiple points with two (a goal).

LAST FALL: SJU blanked Concordia with a 3-0 decision last Oct. 15 (2024) in Moorhead.

Defender McKaid Schotzko scored what proved to be the game-winning goal in the 18th minute for SJU. The Cobber goalkeeper punched a free kick from sophomore defender Brendan Hainey to the left of the box where it found an open Schotzko for his first goal of the season and third of his collegiate career.

Carter Hermanson then made it 2-0 with his second goal of the season and fifth of his career in the 40th minute. Hainey ripped a shot close to his free kick in the 18th minute that hit off the out-stretched hand of the keeper, off the crossbar and into the air where Hermanson played a header to the back of the net.

Buxell led O'Connor with a pretty pass into the box to end the game's scoring in the 68th minute. The goal was O'Connor's team-leading fourth of the season.

Siefken had four saves for his third shutout of the season and 16th of his career.

SJU posted a 13-7 advantage in shots (10-4 on goal) against the Cobbers and a 10-0 showing in corner kicks.

SERIES HISTORY: SJU leads the all-time series with a 25-10-4 record, including a 13-3-2 margin in Moorhead.