PISCATAWAY, N.J. – The Rutgers men's soccer team dropped its home opener to Elon, 8-1, on Sunday night at Yurcak Field.

The Phoenix got onto the scoreboard early in the game with Inigo Bronte netting three of Elon's four first half tallies by the 28^th minute.

Down 4-0 at the intermission, junior Jordan Hall put Rutgers onto the scoreboard moments in the second half. With a takeaway at midfield, the Manchester, England product dribbled to the top of the 18 and placed the ball into the lower right corner of the Phoenix goal.

Jordan Hall opens the second half scoring for #RFutbol! pic.twitter.com/ihbWz5Mreg

— Rutgers Men's Soccer (@RUMensSoccer) September 3, 2018

Elon, however, would add another four goals before the night was through.

"We can go one of two ways. We can either let this break us and completely demoralize us or accept the embarrassment of that game and try and move forward," said head coach Dan Donigan. "We have to stay together collectively as a group and recover from this game and bounce back. Tonight for whatever reason was not to be for us. We have to find answers to solve some of the problems that went out there tonight, and if we can do that, I still feel this group will be ok. I don't want to downplay it, but at the same time, I don't want this to kill anything we had going because we worked really hard to this point and ran into a major road block tonight. We can't let this break us. There's no reason we shouldn't be able to bounce back Saturday night against Hartford."

Rutgers fired off 11 shots to Elon's 15 and the Phoenix held a 7-2 advantage in corner attempts.

Redshirt junior Joe Bruno made his first appearance in goal for the Scarlet Knights logging three saves in the final 30 minutes of the contest.

The Rutgers men's soccer team looks to get back on track on Saturday, Sept. 8 against Hartford at Yurcak Field at 7 p.m.

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