COLUMBUS, Ohio – Playing on the road in front of a sold-out crowd in its Big Ten opener, No. 6 Rutgers men's lacrosse was downed by No. 19 Ohio State, 11-7. The Buckeyes earned their first win over Rutgers since 2018, breaking a five-game winning streak in the series for the Scarlet Knights.
Rutgers holds a 14-3 lead in the all-time series against OSU. On the season, RU falls to 7-2 overall and 0-1 in Big Ten play.
Jonathan Dugenio won 14-of-20 faceoffs and collected 11 ground balls. Short-stick defensive midfielder
Noah Daniels and attackman
Eric Civetti led RU with two goals.
Shane Knobloch,
Dante Kulas and
Jack Aimone also scored for RU. Rutgers led 43-37 in shots and 14-7 in faceoffs.
The play was fairly even on the stat sheet early, with shots 9-9 after one quarter, and RU winning six of the first nine faceoffs. However, the home team capitalized on some early shooting to get out to an early 5-2 lead.
Eric Civetti and
Dante Kulas had first quarter tallies for the Scarlet Knights.
The Scarlet Knights were blanked in the second quarter however, as OSU took a 7-2 lead into the halftime locker room. RU had a season-low for goals in a half despite just a 20-17 advantage in shots for OSU and wins in 7 of 11 faceoffs.
In the third quarter, RU scored first, with
Shane Knobloch tallying on a man-up situation, faking out his defender to create space in front and score. The goal was RU's first in a 20-plus minute span and started a streak of three goals within two minutes for the Scarlet Knights, with
Jack Aimone, and then
Noah Daniels in transition scoring to get the deficit down to 8-5. Ohio State answered back with the next two goals and took a 10-5 lead into the final quarter.
Another transition play saw
Ethan Rall leading a fast break and
Noah Daniels finishing for his second goal of the day, and
Eric Civetti added a tally late. Rutgers held the home team to just four goals in the final 30 minutes. However, OSU was able to close out the game as Rutgers couldn't generate enough offense for a comeback.
Postgame Notes
- Noah Daniels had his first multi-goal game of the season / at Rutgers.
- Jonathan Dugenio had a season-high 11 ground balls, his fourth game at RU with 10+ ground balls (40th game played at Rutgers).
- Freshman Ryan Splaine had his first career game with multiple caused turnovers.
- Eric Civetti had two goals in a game for the third time over the past four games.
- Jack Aimone had a career-high tying two assists.
Up Next
Rutgers has another nationally televised road game next week. RU will travel to No. 8 Johns Hopkins for a Saturday, 3 pm game on ESPNU.
Gallery: (3-26-2023) Men's Lacrosse at Ohio State
