Box Score
MORRIS, Minn. – Saint John's soccer rolled to its second-consecutive shutout with a 7-0 victory at Minnesota-Morris on Friday morning, Sept. 4.
The game was originally scheduled for a 3 p.m. start but was moved up due to the heat index forecast for later in the day.
Six of the Johnnies' seven goals came from freshmen and eight of the team's first nine goals this season have been off the foot of a first-year.
SJU (2-0 overall) had two goals disallowed early in the game – one for a foul and the other on offsides. The visitors continued the onslaught and finally broke through thanks to freshman forward
Grady Monette's (Andover, Minn.) first collegiate goal in the 29th minute.
The Johnnies used a freshman connection to get on the scoreboard, with all three touches coming from a new Johnnie. Forward
Charles Foslien (Ramsey, Minn./Anoka) maintained possession through the midfield before moving the ball to classmate
Soren Benson (Brainerd, Minn./Lake Region Christian). Benson delivered a pass back to Foslien, who got an uncontested shot off that bounced off the Morris keeper's hands. Monette cleaned up the rebound with the eventual game-winner.
Freshman forward
Owen Erickson (Lakeville, Minn./North) doubled the lead before the end of the half, heading a corner kick from sophomore defender
Ike Deuel (Maple Grove, Minn.) with 1:45 remaining.
Junior forward
Ronan O'Connor (Woodbury, Minn./Hill-Murray) open the floodgates with his first goal of the season 2:45 into the second half. Fellow captain
Eli Ryan (Victoria, Minn./Minnetonka) dropped a pass to O'Connor in the middle of the box. O'Connor kicked the ball over a pair of defenders and back to his foot before beating the Morris keeper over his right leg. The goal enabled O'Connor to break his tie with Michael Coborn '14 for fourth in program history with 27.
Monette scored his second of the game 10 minutes later directly off a free kick above the box. His shot bent around the wall of Cougars (1-1 overall) and into the bottom corner of the goal.
Freshman forward
Jacob Oliver (St. Cloud, Minn./Cathedral), Minnesota high school's all-time leading scorer, added another collegiate first three minutes later, scoring off a feed from classmate
Ethan Brown (Lakeville, Minn./Rosemount) for a 5-0 lead.
Foslien (75:54) and Benson (87:26) each added goals on penalty kicks before the end of the game.
SJU out-shot UMM 35-3, including a 19-3 margin on goal. The Johnnies were awarded 16 corner kicks to the Cougars' one, eight of which came before the first SJU goal.
Sophomore goalkeeper
Alex Keekley (St. Louis Park, Minn./Minnetonka) made all three saves for his second-straight clean sheet to start the season.
The Johnnies visit Crown (0-0-1 overall) for a 5 p.m. game tomorrow (Saturday, Sept. 5) in St. Bonifacius.
