HILLSBOROUGH, N.J. – Rutgers men's soccer (1-1-0) dropped a 2-1 score to No. 20 Penn State (2-0-0) in the 2021 Spring home opener on Tuesday afternoon at Iron Peaks Sports & Events.
 
All three of the contest's goals were scored in the first half, with a Jackson Temple penalty kick goal sandwiched between Penn State tallies. Rutgers' Cole Sotack picked up his second yellow card of the game in the 49^th minute, forcing the freshman off the pitch as the Scarlet Knights played the final 40 minutes with 10 men.
 
The Nittany Lions got the offensive-minded first half started in the ninth minute on a goal from Daniel Bloyou, who finished a long ball that skipped into the box. The defense would tighten on both ends over the next 20 minutes.
 
Rutgers equalized in the 33^rd after Randy Arronis got a lead on a defender on a run into Penn State's 18-yard box, where he was taken down for a foul and a penalty. Jackson Temple stepped up and buried an inside of the right foot burner to the right side of the net. It was the sophomore's fourth point of the season after grabbing two assists in the opening victory at Michigan State, and the Millville, Pa. native's sixth career goal.
 
It took the nationally ranked Nittany Lions just 2:19 to go back out in front on Peter Mangione's goal inside the six, cleaning up a blocked shot by Dax Hoffman.
 
"Our guys left it all out there in a competitive game against a really good Penn State team," said head coach Jim McElderry. "After we conceded the first goal, we played really well and deserved to equalize. We were disappointed to give up a sloppy goal shortly after. Then the game changes when a guy gets a second yellow card and you have to defend a bit more, but even after that, I thought we earned some great chances on offense. We showed some toughness to create opportunities down a man."
 
With Rutgers down a man, the disparity in shots showed. Penn State took nine compared to RU's three over the final 45 minutes. Rutgers' Thomas DeVizio had a good chance to equalize in the 78^th minute on one of those shots, a seeker to the right side of the PSU net that beat the keeper, but was saved off the line by a Nittany Lion defender for a team save to keep the 2-1 lead.

Freshman Ola Maeland made his Rutgers debut and took a shot on goal. Arronis, DeVizo, Temple and Kyle Galloway were credited with Rutgers four other shots on target in the setback.
 
"We had some guys step up today that played really well," McElderry said. "We were impressed with guys that hardly played any minutes in our first match at Michigan State, then played significant minutes today. That makes us feel great about the depth of this team."
 
Rutgers has a road match on tap at Wisconsin on Saturday, Feb. 27 at 7:30 p.m. ET (6:30 p.m. CT). The Badgers have started their season 0-2-0.
 
"It's physically challenging coming off such a long break and getting back into this game speed," McElderry said. "We took a lot of positives out of this game. We'll try to recover as quickly as we can as we head out to Wisconsin."


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