PISCATAWAY, N.J. – Rutgers men's lacrosse will play its final regular season game this Friday night, hosting No. 10 Penn State in the annual rivalry battle for the Friendship Cup. The 6 p.m. game will be broadcast on Big Ten Network with Joe Beninati and Mark Dixon on the call. Friday will be Senior Day, with Rutgers recognizing a 27-member senior class in a pregame ceremony that begins at 5:25 pm. It is also the program's annual Alumni Appreciation Day, with the 1974, 1984 and 2004 teams being recognized on anniversaries of their NCAA Tournament seasons. WRSU (88.7 FM), Rutgers Student Radio station, will also broadcast the game.
Rutgers enters the game 7-5 overall and 1-3 in Big Ten. The Scarlet Knights resume is highlighted by road win at then-No. 15 Michigan but has been held back by five losses to teams rated in the top-20 of this week's RPI.
Rutgers offense is buoyed by a pair of multi-time All-Americans in attackman
Ross Scott (team-high 21 assists and 39 points) and midfielder
Shane Knobloch (team-high 27 goals, 38 points). Freshman midfielder
Colin Kurdyla led RU with two goals against the Terps last game, the fifth multi-goal game for the freshman, and has 17 goals on the year, third on the team with 26 points.
Redshirt freshman goalkeeper
Cardin Stoller had 14 saves against Maryland. The four-time Big Ten Freshman of the Week holds a 55.6% save percentage and 10.66 goals-against average, with his save percentage and his 12.42 saves per game second in the league.
Cole Brams is at 115-of-215 (53.5%) on faceoffs, with a team-high 58 ground balls. Long-stick midfielder
Ryan Splaine has excelled, with 35 ground balls, a team-high 11 caused turnovers, and also added three goals.
As a team, Rutgers has just 13.58 turnovers per game, fifth best nationally and first in the Big Ten. RU is also second in the league in saves per game and man-down defense.
Penn State enters the week ranked 10
th in both the media and coaches' poll, and 9
th in the RPI. PSU, 8-3 overall and 2-2 in the league, has played eight of their 11 games against teams in the top-20 of this week's RPI. They have losses to Johns Hopkins (3), Maryland (6) and Colgate (18), with wins over Yale (8), Cornell (10), Ohio State (15), Michigan (16) and Villanova (20). PSU is top-10 nationally in man-down defense (fifth), scoring defense (ninth) and scoring margin (ninth). They lead the league in man-down and scoring defense, along with saves per game (12
th nationally), scoring offense (12
th) and points (14
th).
TJ Malone leads the Nittany Lions offense, currently third in the nation in points per game (5.6) and also leading the Big Ten in assists (2.8 per game). He has 56 points on 28 goals and 28 assists. Matt Traynor leads the squad with 32 goals, while Mac Costin added 23.
Goalkeeper Jack Fracyon leads the Big Ten in save percentage (58.7%, sixth nationally) and saves per game (13.45, seventh). The team has split faceoffs between Colby Baldwin (62-of-156, 39.7%) and Chase Mullins (70-of-140, 50.0%), with both below 45% in Big Ten play alone.
Rutgers is ahead 46-25 in the all-time series against Penn State, dating back to their first meeting in 1946. RU's 46 wins over the Nittany Lions are its most over any one school.
Since 2021, RU has won three of the four meetings between the teams and have won four of seven dating back to 2018. RU is 5-1 in its last six true home games with the Nittany Lions dating back to 2010, and 4-2 at SHI Stadium vs. PSU since joining the Big Ten in 2015 (including a neutral site meeting as the 2019 Big Ten Tournament hosts).
The annual rivalry game is contested for the Friendship Cup. The trophy debuted in 1998 as a symbol of the friendship of a group of four friends from Sewanhaka High School on Long Island who went off to college splitting two ways; one pair attending Penn State, and the other heading off to Rutgers, including the recently passed Tom Hayes, who was a Penn State alumn and then the long-time head coach at Rutgers. Since that trophy was instituted in 1998, RU has raised the Friendship Cup postgame as victors nine times.
Ross Scott enters the game with 176 career points. He is within striking distance of John Danowski (12th, 177) and Greg Rinaldi (11th, 178) on RU's all-time list. He also has 107 career goals, trailing Ed Trabulsy (11th, 112) and Jack Daut (10th, 113) on RU's all-time list.
Shane Knobloch enters the game with 96 career goals. He is four goals away from becoming the 13th Rutgers player to have 100 career goals.
Brian Brecht has 99 wins at the helm of the Scarlet Knights. His next win will make him the third coach in program history to reach 100 wins, joining Tom Hayes (194) and Fred Fitch (105). Brecht has 99 wins in 13 seasons at RU. In the previous 13 seasons, RU won 70 games.
- Rutgers' first top-10 win and second ranked win of the season.
- First top-10 win since Feb. 25, 2023 (over No. 5/6 Loyola).
- First top-10 conference win since March 27, 2022 over No. 8/9 Ohio State.
- First ranked win over Penn State since Feb. 20, 2021, a 11-9 win over No. 6 PSU.
- 47th all-time win over Penn State, RU's most over any one opponent, and fourth win in the past five meetings.
- Head coach Brian Brecht's 100th career win at Rutgers.
- Secure a tie for third place finish in the Big Ten standings.
- (Can secure home game in Big Ten Tournament Quarterfinals with Ohio State loss or other tiebreakers with Ohio State win).
Rutgers will honor 27 seniors in a pregame ceremony, which is set to start at 5:25 p.m. on the field. The 27 seniors to be honored are:
Ross Scott,
Shane Knobloch,
Matt Soutar,
Jon Miller,
Mason Edwards,
Nick Teresky,
Jack Crosby,
Peter Rizzotti,
Brian Russo,
Brandon Hund,
Cole Brams,
John Sidorski,
James Ringer,
Jack Aimone,
Kyle Tietjen,
Mason Rickens,
Harris Hubbard,
Donnie Howard,
Liam Gray,
Zak Conley,
Tanyr Krummenacher,
Clinton Gourdeau,
LaJhon Jones Jr.,
Seamus Fagan,
Tim Sommer,
Tanner Germain and
Connor McDonough.
The program annually invites back all its alumni for the final home game of the regular season for a celebration of all the team's alumns have done for the growth of the program. This game, RU will also honor the 1974, 1984 and 2004 teams specifically with a halftime recognition in honor of anniversaries of their NCAA Tournament seasons.
Rutgers can finish between the No. 3 and 6 seed in the Big Ten Tournament, with the 3 and 4 seed hosting a Quarterfinal game against the 5 and 6 seeds. Rutgers can be the No. 3 seed and host with a win and a Michigan win over Ohio State. If Rutgers and Ohio State both win, there is a three-way tiebreaker between RU, PSU and OSU for the two hosting spots, with RU needing a goal differential in their win of 3 or more to overcome that tiebreaker, and RPI also a factor. A Rutgers loss will put them on the road against either Penn State or Ohio State, who appear to be the only two opponents RU can face in the Quarterfinals.
