PISCATAWAY, N.J. – Rutgers field hockey had a strong performance over the weekend, with a pair of conference wins, defeating Michigan State (2-0) and No. 3 Ohio State (1-0). Following the performances, RU earned two of the three Big Ten weekly awards given by the conference office.
Sophia Howard was named the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Week and
Sophie Kuiper was named the Big Ten Freshman of the Week.
The duo ran RU's total of Big Ten weekly awards to four this season. Howard earned her second Big Ten Defensive Player of the Week award this year. Kuiper joined
Anna Cogdell as recipients this season of the Big Ten Freshman of the Week award. Both of those previous accolades were awarded on September 30 following RU's other top-10 win this season, when the Scarlet Knights beat No. 7 Iowa.
Howard backstopped the defense as she led the way for a pair of shutouts over the weekend. Howard made six saves across the two games as RU shut out an opponent for the first time since the season's opening game. The Sunday shutout came against an OSU offense that entered the weekend fifth in the nation with 3.67 goals per game. It was just the second time OSU had been shut out all season, and in fact only the second time OSU had been held under two goals.
"We really changed our mindset coming into this weekend," Howard explained. "Just resetting, what had happened in the past was in the past, and we were able to start over. We had to just defend with everything we had."
Kuiper scored two-thirds of the team's goals this weekend, tallying in each game over the weekend to increase her season goal total to three, with her first goals in a conference game this year. She made her impact in the opening quarter of each game to allow RU to posses leads throughout the game, including scoring the game-winning goal to defeat the No. 3 Buckeyes when facing the team with the fifth best goals-against-average in the nation.
The win over No. 3 Ohio State was the team's second ranked win and second top-10 win of the season (also the 15th top-10 win since April of 2021). RU has now won seven consecutive games over Ohio State. It was only the fourth win in program history over a top-3 team and first since defeating No. 3 Northwestern in 2022.
Next up, RU will host one game this weekend. Friday at 2 p.m. will be the final Big Ten game, as Penn State visits for Senior Day.
