PISCATAWAY, N.J. – No. 7 Rutgers men's lacrosse stayed unbeaten Saturday, defeating St. John's 12-8 on a rainy afternoon at High Point Solutions Stadium.
Jules Heningburg led the Scarlet Knights (2-0) offense with four goals, while
Casey Rose added three tallies.
Max Edelmann made nine saves in the win over the Red Storm (0-1). The win was RU's fifth consecutive in the season series against St. John's.
"It's great any time that you get a chance to put on the white jerseys at home to get a win," head coach
Brian Brecht said. "I don't know if we played our best for all sixty minutes, but we played well enough to get an important win at home. Jules came on strong at the end, but we were a mostly balanced group overall offensively, which was good to see."
Rutgers outshot St. John's 35-26 and led 33-21 on ground balls. The Red Storm had 18 turnovers compared to 12 for the Scarlet Knights.
The visitors established an early edge, leading 3-1 after 13 minutes of action. Rutgers stormed back, as redshirt junior
Casey Rose followed with a natural hat trick, scoring the next three goals of the game to take the lead for good.
Sophomore
Owen Mead tallied next, recording his first career goal. Senior captain
Austin Divitcos followed that with just his second career goal, extending the run to five straight Rutgers goals for a 6-3 lead. SJU had a late tally to make the score 6-4 Rutgers heading into halftime.
Coming out of halftime, RU scored four of the next five goals to extend their lead to 10-5. Heningburg scored twice, aided by tallies from
Kieran Mullins and
Christian Mazzone in that stretch.
The teams would trade off scores from there. Heningburg scored twice more, with all of his goals on the day coming in the second half, leading to a four-goal victory.
The Scarlet Knights will take to the road for the first time for next weekend's game. RU is at No. 16 Army Saturday at 2:30 pm.
Postgame Notes
