PISCATAWAY, N.J. – No. 18 Rutgers field hockey (9-6, 4-3 Big Ten) took down No. 7 Michigan (12-4, 5-2 Big Ten), winning 3-0.
Katie Larmour,
Austyn Cuneo and
Kerrie Burns had the goals, while Gianna held the Wolverines scoreless for the shutout. Michigan led 10-6 in shots and 10-4 in corners, but the Scarlet Knights defense held strong to shut them out. Cuneo had four points on the day with a goal and two assists.
Milena Redlingshoefer also added an assist.
Rutgers broke through in the second quarter, scoring twice to take a 2-0 lead., capitalizing on a pair of penalty corners. On the first goal of the day,
Austyn Cuneo sent a pass to the back post, where
Katie Larmour was waiting to send the ball home.
The second goal of the day came with an acrobatic flair. The corner was sent to
Milena Redlingshoefer, who did a spin move and then placed the ball for Cuneo. Then Cuneo sent a shot home in the waning seconds of the second quarter, to give the Scarlet Knights a 2-0 lead at halftime.
In the third quarter, another penalty corner opportunity gave RU its final goal of the day. Off a shot from Cuneo,
Kerrie Burns redirected the ball into the net for a 3-0 lead.
Michigan played the fourth quarter without a goalkeeper, pressing to score. The Wolverines had seven penalty corner opportunities in the final frame, but the RU defense held strong and preserved the shutout win.
- This was the program's first ever win over Michigan.
- This was RU's second top-10 win of the season after previously defeating No. 6 Princeton.
- This ties for the highest ranked Big Ten team RU has ever beaten.
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Katie Larmour has a new career-high with 15 points on the season.
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Kerrie Burns has set career-highs this season in goals (four) and points (nine).
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Austyn Cuneo has tied her career-high with six goals on the season.
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Austyn Cuneo tied her previous single-game high with two assists.
- The win was Rutgers' fourth ranked victory of the year and ninth ranked win in the last two seasons. Of the program's 15 lifetime ranked wins, 12 of them have come over the past three seasons.
- The shutout was
Gianna Glatz's 17th of her career, with 12 of those being solo efforts. Four of those have come this season.
- The three-goal margin of victory the team's largest ever against a ranked, Big Ten opponent.
- Rutgers' four Big Ten win this season matches the program's best since joining the league.
- Rutgers has a three-game winning streak in Big Ten play for only the second time since joining the conference.
- This was just the second time this season that Michigan had been shutout
- It was the largest margin of defeat for the Wolverines on the year.
"I felt the team and staff did an incredible job preparing all week for this game. We knew it was going to be physical. We knew we had to execute on set pieces, and I think the coaching staff and the assistant coaches do an amazing job on attack penalty corner and defensive penalty corners. So I think our preparation was key. I was so pleased with the team, really the whole team all week, from the freshmen, to the underclassmen to the starting group. We had just such an incredible week of training and everybody was really pushing each other and making each other better. There's a lot of emotion going into this game. And this team, they've been on the verge in a lot of games. This was kind of the one that we knew we were prepared and we knew we could grab it, if we just battled for 60 minutes. And we did that and I'm so proud of them.
- Head Coach
Meredith Civico
"We knew coming into the game that it could come down to corners. I knew that a couple of options were going to be run through me. We've been practicing all week, so it really just came down to executing them and being composed. Everything leading up to it just made it so much easier to execute. It definitely built a lot of confidence with us. We definitely were upset after the Northwestern loss and with how we played in parts of the Michigan State game. We knew that we had some untapped potential. All week we were preparing for a game like this, we knew that it was going to be a battle and we knew that we wanted to win and we came out with the most amount of heart."
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Austyn Cuneo
"It was a total team effort. I think our forward lines did an incredible job coming back and we were really able to put their midfield under a lot of pressure every time they received the ball. I thought our defensive unit was so good. They're so solid and our defensive penalty corner unit in particular, that group works so hard. They do tons of reps and they watch tons of video. To secure the shutout, and especially because Michigan had a run of penalty corner opportunities at the end of the game and they were just were so gritty and there was no way the ball was going in the goal."
- Head Coach
Meredith Civico on the team's defensive effort
Rutgers will host Temple at 1 p.m. on Sunday for the final home game of the regular season. The game will be designated as Senior Day, with RU hosting a pregame ceremony to honor five seniors:
Nikki Santore,
Amanda Lamb,
Emily Howarth,
Austyn Cuneo and
Alanna Gollotto.
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