An Inside Look at Rutgers Men's Lacrosse
Feb 24 | Men's Lacrosse
By Anthony Hernandez, Rutgers Athletic Communications
First-year head coach Brian Brecht knew what he was getting into when he agreed to be the next head coach for Rutgers men’s lacrosse.
He was fully aware that the proud Rutgers program did not record a winning season in the last five years, and that the program had not qualified for the NCAA Championship since 2004.
But Brecht paid little attention to what was written on paper. Entering their final seasons in Piscataway, the Scarlet Knights’ four senior co-captains are following suit, and ready to put Rutgers men’s lacrosse back on the national map.
“Obviously, I can look in the record books and see that we haven’t had a winning season in the past four years but I don’t know if I feel that culture at practice or in the locker room,” Brecht said. “The senior class has been great. The four captains — [Jacob] Fradkin, [Will] Mangan, [Nicholas] Zerrillo and [Zach] Zenda — they compete and work every day. I do feel that each day we go out there as a team, individually and collectively as a whole, we’re making strides.”
It is hard to ignore the polarity between Brecht’s winning experience and that of the senior class. In his last five years as head coach of Siena, Brecht compiled a 57-28 record, four MAAC regular season championships and two NCAA Championship appearances. In the past three seasons, the Knights have a 15-28 record with no tournament bids or championships to their name.
For most seniors, inheriting a new coach and new system in their final season of NCAA eligibility would seem like an adverse situation.
But for Rutgers’ nine-member senior class, there was never any doubt.
“Our whole thing was buying into Coach Brecht’s new scheme because it’s all different — offense, defense, transition game,” said senior M Nick Zerrillo (Brewerton, N.Y.), who notched six goals last season. “It was just about first getting the seniors to buy in, then the rest of the team to buy in and we’ve done that. From the get-go we all believed in his vision, his goals for this season and this program so it was easy to buy in.”
The Rutgers squad (2-1) plays its home opener Sunday, Feb. 26 against UMBC (0-1), and the team is plenty confident it can continue making huge strides in Brecht’s first year.
Despite the Scarlet Knights having six ranked opponents on their schedule this season — they’ve played No. 2 Duke and also face No. 7 Syracuse, No. 9 Notre Dame, No. 10 Villanova and No. 11 Princeton — the team remains optimistic they can compete for one of the four coveted spots in the Big East Championship.
But Brecht wants one thing made clear: those ranked opponents are not scheduled just for looks.
“We have games on the schedule that we just don’t put on the schedule to look good on paper,” Brecht said. “If there’s a game on the schedule, we want to put our best foot forward, and we want to prepare every way we can to have success for those 60 minutes on game day.”
And after three years of struggles, the senior class is more than ready to put their best foot forward. Brecht, along with the rest of his senior class, hope that years from now, all the odds and adversities will no longer matter.
By then, the seniors hope Rutgers lacrosse is synonymous with national prominence.
“For me personally and the rest of the seniors, it’s important to leave our legacy,” said senior co-captain M Will Mangan (Maplewood, N.J.). “Just to be able to know that the past four years of hard work paid off. I want to be able to look at the team and see a perennial top-20, top-15 team.”
