WEST POINT, N.Y. – No. 10/11 Rutgers men's lacrosse used a late first half spurt to rally from an early deficit, but in the end was unable to topple No. 12/13 Army West Point, falling 9-7 to the Black Knights (3-0). RU took its first loss of the season (2-1) despite a hat trick from freshman Tommy Coyne and 14 saves from goalkeeper Max Edelmann.

Army held a 40-32 advantage in shots and 28-18 in ground balls. The Black Knights, who won 11-of-20 faceoffs on the day, established an early 5-1 lead, with RU rallying to tie the game at 5-5 going into half. Ultimately, Army scored the final two goals of the game after a 7-7 tie to decide the game.

"This was a great battle between two top-12 teams," head coach Brian Brecht said. "I loved our composure. We had to be able to come back and go into the halftime tied, but Army made a few more plays than we did today. This was a great learning experience for us early on, and now we have to digest this and get better."

Christian Trasolini opened the scoring, firing in a goal just 3:40 into the game. However, Army answered back with the next three goals, taking a 3-1 lead after one quarter. The Black Knights extended that lead to 5-1, as the Scarlet Knights went 22 minutes without scoring.

However, Rutgers finished the opening half with a flurry, scoring three times in the final two minutes of the half to send the game into intermission at a 5-5 tie. The freshman early enrollee Coyne sparked the run, scoring his first career goal with 2:02 to play, then finishing on the fast break a minute later, and completing the natural hat trick just 15 seconds after that. In the final seconds of the frame, Jules Heningburg held the ball in his stick. Waiting until the final seconds, he got around his defender and dunked the ball home to even the score.

The game went back-and forth in scoring for the final half. Army took the lead back at 6-5 early in the third, but Heningburg answered late in the stanza to make it 6-6 after 45 minutes of action.

In the fourth quarter, again Army struck first, but again RU had an answer with Christian Mazzone tallying a diving equalizer. However, the Black Knights scored the final two goals of the game and the home squad took the victory.

Next up for the Scarlet Knights is a home contest, Saturday Feb. 24 at noon against Fairfield.

Postgame Notes

• Redshirt freshman Garrett Bullett made his first career start on defense
• Freshman Tommy Coyne scored his first career goal and finished with three scores.
• Heningburg finished with two goals and two assists for four points. He leads the team with seven goals, eight assists and 15 points on the season.
• Joe Francisco saw his first game action of the season, going 3-of-7 on faceoffs. Alex Schoen was 6-of-13 at the 'X'.
• The second longest played rivalry for Rutgers, Army now leads the all-time series 57-23-1.