PISCATAWAY, N.J. – No. 19 Rutgers men's lacrosse will welcome No. 3 Maryland on Sunday night in the team's first Big Ten home game. The contest will begin at 7 p.m. and be nationally televised on Big Ten Network, with Joe Beninati (play-by-play) and Mark Dixon (color commentary) on the call. There will also be two radio broadcasts provided by WRSU (88.7 FM) and Lacrosse Talk Radio. It will be Rutgers' annual Military Appreciation Day.
ABOUT RUTGERS: The Scarlet Knights are 6-5 on the year and 1-1 in the Big Ten. All of the team's losses have coming against ranked opponents. Rutgers is led by
Kieran Mullins, as the junior attackman has already set or tied career-highs with 30 assists and 51 points. With six assists on Saturday, he reached 150 career points.
Ryan Gallagher added four goals, his fourth multi-goal game over his last five games. In the two Big Ten games, Rutgers' attack trio of Mullins, Gallagher and
Adam Charalambides has combined for 16 goals and 30 points. Overall, the three attackman have scored 70 of the teams 127 goals and have 120 of the team's 203 points this season.
As a team, RU ranks in the top-five in the nation in man-down defense (second, .857), saves (fourth, 15.09 per game), clearing (fifth, 88.5%) and turnovers (fifth, 14.0). Individually, Edelmann leads the country in saves (15.89 per game) and is third in save percentage (.603), while Mullins is fifth in assists (3.33) and sixth in points (5.67).
Rutgers' senior class was won 36 games over the past four seasons (36-19). With one more victory, the group will break the record most victories in a four-year span. 12 players have spent all four of those years 'On the Banks' (
Kyle Pless,
Mark Christiano,
Ben Dodson,
Ryan Cunningham,
Jack Ayre,
Garrett Michaeli,
Adam Graham,
Max Edelmann,
Casey Rose,
Alex Schoen,
Adam Charalambides and
Garrett Bullett)
ABOUT MARYLAND: The Terrapins enter the contest ranked third in the nation with a 9-2 overall record, with a resume that includes wins over No. 16 Colgate and No. 19 North Carolina, and losses at No. 12 Notre Dame (in overtime) and to No. 1 Penn State. Jared Bernhardt leads the team with 35 goals and 57 points, followed closely by Logan Wisnauskas' 32 goals and 56 points. Austin Henningsen, the reigning Big Ten Specialist of the Week, is 118-of-183 on faceoffs (64.4 percent). Goalkeeper Dan Dolan paces the Big Ten with a goals-against-average of 9.62.
ABOUT THE SERIES: Rutgers and Maryland have played 30 times dating back to 1928, with the Scarlet Knights earning their lone victory in 1980. In that contest, a 9-8 win, senior Bob Olsen led the way with a game-high five goals and added two assists. Bob Vencak (Rutgers Hall of Fame Class of 2017) excelled on defense in the game in marking Maryland's Bob Boniello, who is second all-time at UMD in points.
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