Final Stats

VILLANOVA, Pa. - Sean Cerrone set a career high and Danny Seibel tied a season best to pace the Wildcats (6-6, 1-3) to a 21-11 win over St. John's (3-10, 1-3) on Saturday night in Villanova Stadium. The victory marked the fifth win in six years over the Red Storm as Villanova's hopes to make the BIG EAST Tournament stayed alive with the result.

Tonight's contest marked the first conference win for the Wildcats this season as Villanova improved to 1-3 in league games and 6-6 overall. That puts them in a two-way tie at 1-3 alongside St. John's for the final berth into the conference tournament with one week left in the regular season. Denver, Georgetown and Marquette have each already secured a spot in the annual postseason event. Villanova will play at Providence next weekend while the Red Storm will travel to Georgetown.

"We needed this win tonight to get into playoff's so it was a do-or-die mindset for us," said Cerrone following the contest. "We looked at tonight as a playoff game and next week we just have to keep winning."

Despite taking a commanding lead in the second half, the Wildcats had to come from behind when St. John's got out to a quick 4-1 lead in the opening 5:47 minutes of action. Following two back-to-back goals from Cerrone and Gallaway to close the gap to 4-3, the Red Storm notched an additional two scores to make it 6-3 with 5:34 left to play in the first quarter. Three unanswered goals by the Wildcats evened the scoreboard at 6-6 to finish the hot-shooting first stanza.

Villanova's Jack Curran continued to make plays on the offensive end and gave the Wildcats a 7-6 lead to open the second quarter before the visitors evened the score and took a go-ahead goal at 8-7 with scores from Nick Heller and Eric DeJohn at the 11:23 and 10:09 marks. Both sides would tie the contest at 8-8 and 9-9 before Villanova's Harry DellaFera finished the first half with a minute on the clock to give the hosts a 10-9 lead heading into intermission.

Finding renewed energy and building upon their momentum, Villanova took a commanding lead in the third quarter and registered six unanswered goals and eight total to bridge the second and third quarters to make it 16-9 heading into the final period. The Wildcats saw scores from Cerrone, DellaFera, Seibel, and Jordan Cunningham during that run in the total team offensive effort.

St. John's broke a 27 minute scoreless streak with 11:25 left to play when Stefan Diachenko found the back of the net off a DeJohn assist to close the lead to 16-10. Villanova's Matt McIver and Johnny Gallaway would respond with another two scores to make it 18-10 before Michael Paoline's goal with 7:47 on the clock would mark the final goal for the visitors on the night to make it 18-11. Villanova's Eric Gartner, Remington Pope and Seibel finalized the win with another trio of scores to make it 21-11 in favor of the hosts.

Villanova dominated the stat sheet and outshot their opponents by a 55-33 margin for the contest and won the ground ball game 27-21. The Wildcats also were 4-of-9 on extra man opportunities for the evening and had a 23-36 advantage in faceoff's courtesy of Luke Palmadesso. 13 Wildcats registered points while Greg Stamatov and Dan Willis combined for 11 saves in the victory.

The Wildcats will return to action a week from today for the final game of the regular season when they travel to Providence, R.I. to face the Providence College Friars. Game time is slated for 1 p.m. at Lennon Family Field.

NOTES: Tonight's contest marked the highest combined score (32 goals) in a Villanova game since a 19-18 loss to Delaware on April 14th, 2007... Additionally, it was the most goals scored by the Wildcats dating back to a 21-11 win over St. Joseph's on April 17th, 1999... Tonight was the first time Villanova has won in double figures since a 17-7 win over Lehigh on February 18th, 2012.