By Anthony Bosco
I had already suffered enough for one day. Having stood outside in the cold and rain for the better part of two hours at the Queens cross country championships earlier in the day, I wasn’t exactly thrilled with the prospect of doing it again Friday night, even if it was to watch the St. John’s men’s soccer team take on the University of Connecticut.
The allure of the game should have been enough to entice me to Belson Stadium for the first time, but following the day’s events and having not been able to raise my core temperature despite blasting the heat in my car to obscene levels, I was less than anxious to make the trek to the Jamaica campus.
But a pre-dinner engagement with associate sports editor Dylan Butler and photographer Uli Seit was arranged — at the altogether sublime restaurant on Union Turnpike, Acquista’s — and I had no choice but to tough it out.
The dinner was the highlight of the evening, served at a restaurant owned by a prominent local soccer family.
Dinner was supposed to be at 6 p.m. and the game at 8 p.m., but as we came to a close on our meal, Dylan phoned St. John’s to find out the status of the game preceding SJU’s. It was running late, which meant the three of us got to kick back across the street and stay warm.
Soon enough, though, the time came for us to go. So I donned my jacket, which was already covering three additional layers, and went to the school.
The first thing that struck me upon entering the stadium was the crowd. The place seemed jam-packed, despite the less-than-stellar weather. A light drizzle was falling, but no one seemed to mind, as a sea of red clamored about in support of the Red Storm.
The game, which had been one of the highlights of the Big East season for several seasons now, pitted the hometown Johnnies against the hated Huskies, a team so despised on the campus of St. John’s, you’d think the players and coaching staff had personally insulted the mother of each and every person in attendance.
As I have stated many times before, I am no soccer expert. I know the sport just enough to write about it, which means I could probably coach the MetroStars, but beyond that, I am lost. With football, I can spot the little nuances of play that the casual observer might not see, but on the soccer field, more often than not, all I see is a bunch of guys kicking the ball around with no rhyme or reason.
Friday was an eye-opener in one respect; getting to watch a game with someone who knows a lot about the sports — like Dylan — you pick up a thing or two. And I think I did.
I have heard Dylan talk and read his stories over the years on the excellent program that St. John’s has under coach Dave Masur. But this year’s team seems better than most, even garnering the No. 1 ranking in the country briefly before a tie with UCLA bumped the Red Storm out of the top spot.
When play started, I watched as closely as I could, fighting off the shivers of the cold bound to make me bed-ridden for most of Sunday, and tried to catch the subtle things I often overlook when covering a game.
And they were there, just under the surface. A fine defensive play on one end by a St. John’s defender, stealing the ball away from a UConn attacker and preventing a wide open shot, or the surging offensive attack following a failed surge by the opposing team.
That may be the new stadium’s greatest attribute: Every seat is a good seat and the close proximity mixed with the ability to view the whole field enables the spectator to watch the play develop and get a better grasp of the game.
I had a similar experience the first time I attended an NHL game in person. Having watched hockey on TV for years, my view was always limited because the camera always followed the puck. In person, however, I was able to see the entire play unfold, pass by pass, from a broad view.
My soccer knowledge may be limited, but even a blind man could have seen that this game was being played on the highest level. Both teams got good goaltending from their respective keepers, both offensives created plenty of opportunities and both defenses came up big, time and again.
Chris Wingert stood out as perhaps the best player on the field. A defender Dylan called “one of the best of the nation,” Wingert made one fine play after another, keeping St. John’s in the game and enabling the team to eventually take the lead, when Rich Bradley scored six minutes into the second half.
St. John’s held on for the 1-0 win — barely — in a game that ended at about midnight. The win capped a night I thoroughly enjoyed, even though I hobbled out of the team’s beautiful new stadium with a sniffle and the urge to run to my car and turn on the heat.
Reach Sports Editor Anthony Bosco by e-mail at TimesLedger@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 130.
