The Bulldogs and St. John's meet Saturday night in Indianapolis in a match-up of the only two BIG EAST teams with 2-0 league marks through the first two weekends of the season. The match will begin at 7 p.m. at the Sellick Bowl, and will be streamed through Facebook Live on the ButlerBulldogs page.
 
Butler is 6-2 overall and 2-0 in BIG EAST play with the two wins coming against the only two teams – Creighton and Providence – picked ahead of Butler in the preseason poll. St. John's is 5-3-1 overall with their two BIG EAST wins coming at Seton Hall (1-0, Sept. 16) and at home against Xavier (3-0, Sept. 23). Xavier was ranked No. 19 nationally at that time. St. John's lost at Lehigh, 2-1, in a midweek contest leading into Saturday's match. The Red Storm have only allowed five goals in their nine matches.
 
Butler and St. John's have met eight times previously, with the Red Storm holding a 6-1-1 advantage. In 2016, St. John's posted a 1-0 home win behind Harry Cooksley's goal in the 85^th minute. Butler won, 2-1, in Indianapolis in 2015.
 
The Bulldogs are ranked No. 22 in the United Soccer Coaches poll as well as No. 19 in the College Soccer News rankings. Butler is receiving votes in the Top Drawer Soccer national poll.
 
Redshirt senior keeper Eric Dick had a four-save shutout performance at Providence Sept. 23, earning BIG EAST Goalkeeper of the Week honors. Two of the saves were sprawling stops made with his leg as Friar attackers shot from point blank range. Dick posted his third shutout of the season, and he now has 22 solo shutouts in his career. On the season, Dick has a record of 6-1 and a save percentage of .806, which is second-best in the BIG EAST.

This is Dick's second weekly honor of the season, as he also picked up BIG EAST honors on Aug. 28 after orchestrating a 1-0 overtime shutout against UIC in the season opener.
 
Butler's lone goal in the 1-0 win at Providence came off the foot of Brandon Guhl in the 31^st minute. Guhl leads the BIG EAST with seven goals. His seven goals have come on only 11 shots this season. Guhl ranks sixth nationally with those seven goals and ninth with 16 points. His point total also leads the conference. These are the first seven collegiate goals for the sophomore transfer from SMU.
 
Lewis Suddick and Isaac Galliford each had an assist on Guhl's goal. That now gives Suddick a BIG EAST-best five assists on the season.  
 
The Bulldogs trailed 2-0 in the match with Creighton Sept. 16 before two goals from Guhl in the final 15 minutes of regulation tied the contest. Less than three minutes into overtime, sophomore Alex Lehtinen headed in the game-winner off a Suddick corner kick. It was the first goal of Lehtinen's Butler career.
 
With the two goals against Creighton (in addition to an assist on Joel Harvey's game-winner earlier in the week in the 1-0 win over Evansville), Guhl was named BIG EAST Offensive Player of the Week and earned spots on the national teams of the week for College Soccer News and Top Drawer Soccer Sept. 18. Guhl joins Jared Timmer (Aug. 28) and Suddick (Sept. 4) as Butler players have been selected for the conference's offensive weekly award in three of the five weeks so far this season. Additionally, Dick has earned weekly goalkeeper honors twice.
 
The Bulldogs have kept fans on the edge of their seat through the early part of the season as all eight results have been of the one-goal variety, including a 3-0 mark in overtime contests. Butler's six wins have each featured a different Bulldog with the game-winner (Guhl, Lehtinen, Harvey, Suddick, Timmer, and Kieran Geldenhuys). Butler's 14 goals on the season include seven from Guhl, five game-winners from those other Bulldogs, as well as a goal from Isaac Galliford and a second goal from Suddick.
 
Suddick missed two matches earlier in the season. Butler is 5-1 in Suddick's six matches. In those five wins, Suddick has scored one game-winner and assisted on the game-winner in the other four matches.
 
The win over Creighton was a rematch of the 2016 BIG EAST Tournament championship game that Butler won, 2-1, in Indianapolis. The BIG EAST title game win gave the Bulldogs an automatic berth in the 2016 NCAA Tournament, its first appearance since 2010. Butler has advanced to the NCAA Tournament on seven occasions (also 1995, 1997, 1998, 2001, 2009, and 2010). Five of the first six came by earning the automatic berth that came from winning the Midwestern Collegiate Conference/Horizon League Tournament.
 
In addition to Harvey's first career goal in the Evansville match Sept. 12, several other youngsters have been called upon early in the season. Redshirt sophomore Braden Van Allen got the first start of his Butler career against Evansville. The Evansville native began his career at VCU. Redshirt freshman Nathan Edmunds made his first Butler start in the match against Western Michigan Sept. 8, while Usman Gil Ivern and Maurice Thompson III played the first minutes of their Butler career against the Broncos.
 
Coach Paul Snape has gone deeper onto his bench in recent matches after All-League player Timmer was lost for the season to a leg injury in the team's second match of the season (Aug. 28 at Louisville). Midfielder Marco Charalambous, a starter in 2016, was lost for the season due to a knee injury sustained over the summer. Dick (one match) and Suddick (two matches) have missed time, while sophomore starter Derek Sutton returned to the line-up against Providence after missing three matches dating back to an appearance in the San Francisco match Sept. 3.
 
Galliford, Geldenhuys, Eric Leonard, and Joe Moulden have started all eight matches for the Bulldogs. Moulden is the only Bulldog to play all 730 minutes so far this season. Both Leonard and Geldenhuys have played all but five minutes. Bennett Kim had started the first seven matches before not appearing in the Providence contest.
 
Suddick, Guhl, and Leonard were named to the All-Tournament Team at the Adidas/IU Credit Forum Classic hosted by Indiana University over Labor Day Weekend. Butler posted a pair of 3-2 wins in Bloomington, defeating South Florida and San Francisco. South Florida was Butler's third consecutive opponent to open the season that made the 2016 NCAA Tournament field.

Leonard, Dick and Timmer are the team's captains for the 2017 campaign.

Entering the contest with St. John's, Snape has a record of 58-42-20. The Butler coaching staff, led by Snape, was named the NSCAA (now referred to as United Soccer Coaches) Great Lakes Region Staff of the Year for Division I institutions in 2016. This honor is a result of a vote by other coaches in the region.
 
Butler's next match is a Friday (Oct. 6) contest at nationally-ranked Georgetown.