PISCATAWAY, N.J. - Rutgers field hockey heads down to College Park, Maryland, where it will begin NCAA Tournament play this Friday against No. 5 UConn at 2:30 p.m. The No. 11 Scarlet Knights are making their first appearance in the NCAA Tournament since 1986, where they will face a Huskies team that has won three of the past five national titles, including last year's championship. The game will be live streamed online on Facebook via the Maryland Field Hockey page. Tickets can be purchased here. 

"We're familiar with UConn," head coach Meredith Civico said. "We've scrimmaged them the past two years. They're very similar to our playing philosophies. They play a real structured, possession oriented game. They move the ball well and are really organized on attack and defense. They're a great team and consistently in the final for the past couple of years. We played them in preseason and went into shootouts with them, so I know the team has confidence from that experience. We've been training really hard since the Big Ten Tournament and preparing to play in NCAAs. It should be a great game."

Rutgers enters the contest at 13-5, looking to tie for the second most wins in school history (14), which was previously done in 1986 and 2008. No. 5 UConn would be the highest ranked program the team has ever beaten, after RU defeated No. 6 Princeton earlier this season to set the current mark. A win would mark the third top-10 win and sixth ranked win of the season, both program records. The Scarlet Knights are looking for their first win over UConn since 2001.

Rutgers is led offensively by sophomore First Team All-Big Ten midfielder Daphne Groothuis. She has 13 assists on the year, just two shy of tying the RU single-season record, along with a team-leading 12 goals and 37 points. Second Team All-Big Ten selection senior midfielder Linde van Schaik has 24 career goals, just one away from sixth most in Rutgers history.

"I think this is going to be a really good game and I think we have a really good shot," van Schaik said. "UConn is a really good team, but I think our team has grown a lot over the past two months and are really prepared for this opportunity. I am just so grateful for the opportunity to keep playing with my teammates."

UConn earned an automatic bid by winning the BIG EAST championship, going 7-0 in conference play and defeating No. 15 Liberty in the tournament championship. The Huskies have excelled offensively, leading the nation in points per game (13.0) and assists per game (3.95), while ranking second in scoring average (4.52) and scoring margin (3.19). The Huskies have outscored opponents 95-28 on the year en route to an 18-3 record.

"They have a couple really tremendous forwards," Civico explained. "Cecile Piper with 22 goals and Svea Boker with 17, we have to really keep an eye on them, but they have some weakness, and if we can exploit those, we're right in it."

Conversely, the Scarlet Knights counter with one of the nation's top defenses. RU leads the nation with a team save percentage of 0.838, is second with nine shutouts, and is fifth with a goals-against-average of 0.97. The Scarlet Knights have 10 defensive saves, the seventh most in the nation. Sophomore goalkeeper Gianna Glatz, a First Team All-Big Ten selection, is third in the nation with a 0.811 save percentage and seventh with a goals-against-average of 1.05.



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