PISCATAWAY, N.J. – No. 6 Rutgers men's lacrosse got off to a great start to Big Ten Conference play, earning a dominant 18-7 victory over No. 8/9 Ohio State. The Scarlet Knights improved to 9-1 overall, the team's best record through 10 games since 1956. RU claimed its fourth straight win over the Buckeyes and third ranked win this season in front of a season-high crowd of 4,108.
Rutgers was led by
Ross Scott, who had four goals and three assists, along with a career-high five ground balls.
Mitch Bartolo also had four goals, while
Ronan Jacoby and
Shane Knobloch each tallied twice.
Brian Cameron,
Ryan Gallagher,
Tommy Coyne,
Nick Teresky,
Eric Civetti and
Zackary Franckowiak also tallied on the day for RU.
Jonathan Dugenio excelled at the faceoff 'X', winning 15-of-26.
Colin Kirst made 12 saves while allowing OSU, who entered the game as the No. 7 scoring offense in the nation, to just seven goals.
In the first half, Rutgers got down 3-0 early. However, the Scarlet Knights defense locked in, holding OSU scoreless for the next 15 minutes and RU would dominate from there. The Scarlet Knights tied the game at 3-3, then took the lead for good at 5-4. The home team led 8-5 at halftime, then outscored the Buckeyes 10-2 in the second half.
Postgame Quotes
"Ohio State is a good team, they're ranked in the top-10 for a reason. From start to finish, our defense was lights out.
Jaryd Jean-Felix did an amazing job,
Jonathan Dugenio did a great job facing off. When you're getting stops on the defense end and winning the faceoff battle, that helped us rally from the early slow start. I really like this team, they're very mature, they had a great week of practice and they've been getting better each week. They did a good job gathering themselves and playing well offensively, in transition and in the specialty unit."
"We had a really good game plan coming in. We strung together some good practices this week and were really dialed in. It was a great team effort. We played defense well as unit in holding them to seven goals. It's been a great season so far, and now we're focused one game at a time, every week matters here in the Big Ten as we look to keep it rolling. "
Postgame Notes
With the victory:
- Rutgers improves to 9-1 overall. It marked the team's best record through 10 games for the program since 1956, when the team finished with a 9-1 record.
- It marked the third time in program history that RU reached the 10-game mark with just one loss, matching the 1956 and 1955 (8-1-1) teams.
- Rutgers won its fourth straight game against Ohio State and improved to 12-3 in 15 lifetime meetings.
- RU is 6-2 since becoming conference foes with Ohio State in 2015.
- All six of those victories over the Buckeyes have come with OSU being ranked.
- It marked their fifth win over a top-10 Buckeyes team in that span.
- Rutgers won its third game this season against ranked teams, with the win marking its highest ranked foe defeated on the season.
- The Scarlet Knights are 8-4 over the past two seasons against ranked foes.
- RU is now 5-4 over the past two seasons against top-10 teams.
- Rutgers has 30 wins against ranked teams since 2003, with 14 of them coming against top-10 teams.
- Under head coach Brian Brecht, Rutgers has won 21 games against ranked teams.
- 10 of those have come against top-10 teams
- 6 of those have come against Ohio State
Individual Notes
- Ross Scott tied his career-high in assists and points
- Shane Knobloch surpassed last season's career-highs in goals and points.
Gallery: (3-27-2022) Men's Lacrosse Beats No. 8 Ohio State
Up Next
Rutgers will remain home next weekend to face Johns Hopkins. That game is Sunday night at 7 p.m., broadcast on Big Ten Network.
