Jan. 31, 2005

Monday, January 31, 2005, Queens, NY -- The St. John's men's soccer team, along with their University classmates, returned back to the Queens campus for the second semester of the 2004-05 school year recently.

For the Red Storm men's soccer team, it gave the members of the team and staff to reflect on a season that saw the team reach the NCAA Tournament for the 13th straight season.

St. John's finished the season rated No. 5 in the prestigious National Soccer Coaches Association of America /adidas poll. It is the 12th straight season that St. John's has finished among the top-10 ranked teams in the country, and the third time in the last four years the team has been among the top-five overall.

Following the regular season, St. John's was selected to participate in the NCAA Tournament for the 13th straight year, and was seeded 11th, the fourth-straight season the team earned a top-16 seed in the field.

Matt Groenwald (Mt. Prospect, IL) and Simone Salinno (Lucera, Italy) were named first-team All-BIG EAST, leading a group of seven players who earned all-league honors. Five players earned third-team honors, including junior Jeff Carroll (Springfield, VA), freshman Andrei Gotsmanov (St. Paul, MN), senior captain Chris Corcoran (Marshfield, MA), freshman defender Steven Old (Palmerstown North, New Zealand) and Andre Schmid (Sacramento, CA).

It was the 14th straight season the team posted double-digit wins, all under head coach Dave Masur, who finished the season with a 218-59-38 record at St. John's, and a career record of 271-80-44.

In the classroom, Groenwald earned first-team Academic All-America honors from the College Sports Information Directors of America for the second-straight year. The forward and team captain was also named the CoSIDA Academic All-American of the Year, marking the second-straight season a St. John's player earned that award, joining former Red Storm All-American Chris Wingert.

Following the regular season, Corcoran was one of four players to participate in the Major League Soccer Combine. Corcoran was selected by the New York/New Jersey MetroStars with the first pick of the third round, becoming the sixth player in program history to be selected in the MLS Draft.

For the most up-to-date information and statistics on St. John's Athletics, please visit www.RedStormSports.com, or call our hotline at 1-888-GO-STORM.