No. 20 Field Hockey Travels to No. 2 Maryland for BTN Game Sunday

Sunday, October 16

College Park, MD

4:00PM

Rutgers University

MARYLAND

Rutgers Field Hockey Earned a Huge Win over No. 3 Northwestern

Photo by: Dustin Satloff

No. 20 Field Hockey Travels to No. 2 Maryland for BTN Game Sunday

Oct 13 | Field Hockey

Rutgers Game Notes Live Stats Watch Live (BTN)

Scarlet Knights game will be broadcast on national TV at 4 p.m. Sunday

PISCATAWAY, N.J. - No. 20 Rutgers field hockey will travel to College Park, Maryland for a Sunday showdown against the Maryland Terrapins. The game at 4 p.m. will be nationally televised on Big Ten Network, with Brendan Gulick and Jeanne Shin-Cooper on the call. Rutgers enters the matchup at 7-6 overall and 3-3 in the Big Ten, while No. 2 Maryland is 13-1 overall and leads the conference with an unbeaten 6-0 mark in league games.

The team has been offensively balanced, with its 19 goals coming from nine different players. Among those nine, seven have multiple goals, while three Netherlands natives (Iris Langejans, Marique Dieudonne and Indy van Ek) share the team lead with three goals. Langejans paces the squad with four assists and 10 points.

Last weekend, RU earned its highest ranked win of the season Saturday in a massive victory, taking down No. 3 ranked and the defending national champion Northwestern Wildcats, 2-1. Indy van Ek and Iris Langejans scored goals in the opening quarter for RU, and strong team defense throughout allowed that score to hold up. The pair each earned a Big Ten weekly award for their exploits, and Langejans earned the team's first national award of the season as the national Defensive Player of the Week via the NFHCA.

"Our win over Northwestern, that was the moment where everything came together," Bridy Molyneaux said. "To do it in front of so many of our alumns was really awesome. They way we played in the game, both of offense and defense, that was what Rutgers field hockey is about. This felt like we were finally all in it, all together. We're looking to keep that success going."

The game was part of RU's weekend full of celebrations in honored of the 50^th anniversary of Title IX. The Scarlet Knights, who wore special Title IX warmups pregame, also hosted a large contingent of alumni for a pregame brunch and a postgame barbecue. The large group of alumns, which spanned multiple generations, was recognized pregame in the anthem walkout, and help create a raucous atmosphere which fueled the team in the victory.

RU had a spectacular effort in holding down Northwestern's Bente Baekers, who entered the game with 18 goals through 12 games, leading the nation. RU held her goal-less for just the third time this season and without a point for just the second time.

The victory over No. 3 Northwestern represented Rutgers' fourth ranked win of the season and the highest overall. The win tied a previous win over No. 3 Northwestern for the highest ranked win in the regular season in RU program history. The only higher ranked win for RU came last season over No. 2 Michigan in the Big Ten Tournament championship game.

RU now has four wins in the past five meetings with Northwestern, and each win came with Northwestern ranked No. 4 or higher. After starting the all-time series 0-5, RU is now 5-3 in the last eight meetings in the series. After a program record 13 ranked wins last season, RU now has 36 ranked wins all times, all of them coming under head coach Meredith Civico and 33 of them coming since the start of the 2017 season.

Through 13 games, RU is 5-4 at home and 2-2 on the road. In those 13 games, RU has faced nine ranked teams in an extremely difficult schedule. The Scarlet Knights' past two games have come against the team ranked No. 3 nationally, that kicked of a stretch of six straight games to conclude the regular season against ranked teams, including four against top-five

After graduating 10 seniors from last year's first ever Big Ten Tournament winning squad, including eight starters, RU has a new look to the lineup this year. RU features a traditional starting lineup of Iris Langejans, Puck Winter, Elise Pettisani and Isabella Mancini at back, Guillermina Causarano, Vicky Jure and Lucy Bannatyne at midfield, and Marique Dieudonne, Bridy Molyneaux and Rachel Houston at forward.

Among that group of 11 starters, four of them (Winter, Pettisani, Jure and Dieudonne) entered the season with zero career collegiate games played. Mancini and Howard, two of the team's captains alongside Causarano, had combined for just five career starts entering the year.

"The win over Northwestern was about proving to ourselves that if we stick to our gameplan and play with confidence, passion and pride, we can beat everyone," head coach Meredith Civico said. "We want to be peaking as a team in October and that's what we're doing, playing our best hockey at this time of the year. We have a tough schedule coming up and we have the opportunities coming up to win some more big games. We're taking it one game at a time and we're playing our best hockey of all season at the right time. I'm really proud of the group and where they are right now and really excited for this upcoming stretch of games."

Maryland enters the weekend 13-1 overall and 6-0 in the Big Ten. The Terps' lone loss this season came in double-overtime at No. 7 Princeton. Since then UM is on a six-game winning streak and outscoring opponents 28-4 following an 11-0 win Tuesday against Georgetown. Their record includes seven ranked wins this season.

Hope Rose, an All-American last year as a freshman, leads the team with 27 points. She shares the team lead in goals with Brown transfer Danielle van Rootselaar, as each has 10. Bibi Donraadt, a First Team All-Region selection last year, has eight goals and a team-best nine assists for 25 points. Duke transfer Leah Crouse has added seven goals and four assists for 18 points. In goal, Paige Kieft has a .606 save percentage and 1.42 goals-against-average, bettering those marks to .611 and 1.16 in conference-only games. The Terps are in the top-three nationally in goals, assists, points, scoring average and scoring margin.

Maryland holds a 34-4-1 advantage in the all-time series versus Rutgers. However, the Scarlet Knights earned a historic win in the last meeting with the program's first win over the Terps since 1998. The victory was the first win for Rutgers' head coach Meredith Civico against the school she won a national championship for in 2005.

The win marked RU's first victory over Maryland since 1998, the final Big Ten foe for RU to defeat since joining the league. RU got a goal from Milena Redlingshoefer and 12 saves from Gianna Glatz to earn a 1-0 victory despite being outshot 15-6 and out cornered 6-0.