ANN ARBOR, Mich. – Rutgers men's lacrosse earned its first ranked and conference win of the season on Sunday night. The Scarlet Knights defeated No. 15/16 Michigan by a 9-7 final score behind 19 saves from goalkeeper Cardin Stoller, holding Michigan to a season-low in goals.

The Scarlet Knights never trailed in the game, improving to 7-4 overall and moving to 1-2 in the Big Ten. Michigan fell to 6-5 and 1-2 in league play.

Rutgers was led offensively by Ross Scott, who scored three goals and had an assist for four points, and Shane Knobloch (two goals, two assists for four points). Jack Aimone tallied twice, while Dante Kulas and Logan Peters each scored once.

In the first quarter, Cardin Stoller excelled between the pipes with seven saves in the first frame. Dante Kulas scored the first goal of the game in transition on the team's first possession. From there, it was Ross Scott taking over in the quarter. Scott scored three goals in the first quarter as RU led 4-2 after 15 minutes.

Starting the second quarter, Shane Knobloch and Jack Aimone scored to make it a four-goal run and a 6-2 lead for RU. The Scarlet Knights held that lead at intermission with a 2-0 advantage in the second frame.

In the third quarter, Logan Peters had the first goal after halftime to extend the RU lead to 7-2. RU held Michigan scoreless for over 25 minutes until they finally tallied their third goal midway through the third quarter. Michigan finally put together a run, but a late goal from Knobloch put the visitors ahead, 8-5, entering the fourth quarter.

In the fourth quarter, the Wolverines tallied twice in 11 seconds, making it a 5-1 run for the home team to cut the deficit to one at 8-7 with 9:32 to play.

Jack Aimone halted their momentum with a goal to put RU back up by two at 9-7. The Scarlet Knights held on from there to earn their first ranked win and first league win of the season.
 

Postgame Notes

• Cardin Stoller tied his career-high with 19 saves and a 73.1% save percentage. It was his 3rd game this season over 70%. 
• Stoller's 19 saves matched Colin Kirst (19 saves against Michigan twice in 2021) for the most saves in a Big Ten game by a Rutgers goalkeeper. 
  • Stoller and Kirst are the only RU goalkeepers with 19+ saves in a conference game since the 2014 season (11 seasons).
• Stoller is the only goalkeeper in the Big Ten this season to have more than 17 saves in a game, and he's done it twice (19 vs. UMass and at Michigan).
• Stoller's 19 saves were the most saves in a Big Ten game for any goalkeeper since 2022.
• Prior to this season, only twice since 2015 (the previous 9 seasons) had a RU goalkeeper played the full game and had a save percentage of 70% or better (Colin Kirst vs. Lehigh in the 2021 NCAA Tournament, Max Edelmann in an 8-4 win at Fairfield in 2019). Stoller has now done it twice this season. 
• Ross Scott had three goals.
• • It marked the second hat trick of the year for Scott, and first since scoring three goals at Stony Brook on February 10.
• Ross Scott had four points, giving him 175 points for his career. He moved past Brody Bush and Boby Andrews to move into 13^th place all-time at RU in points.
• Michigan entered the game averaging 13.9 goals per game, second in the Big Ten, and held them to their season-low in goals. It was the fewest goals scored by UM since March 19, 2022, a span of 34 games.
  • It was the fewest goals scored by the Wolverines in Ann Arbor since 2021, a span of 23 home games. 
• Rutgers improved to 7-0 when leading after three quarters.
• It was the ninth straight win over Michigan, the longest winning streak over any Big Ten foe.

• RU is now 10-1 all-time against Michigan.
• It was the first ranked win of the season.
• RU improved to 4-0 away from home (3-0 on the road and 1-0 at a neutral site). 

 

Up Next

Rutgers will play its final three games of the regular season in prime time slots on the Big Ten Network. Up next are games at No. 6/9 Maryland (Saturday, April 13, 7 pm) and hosting No. 7/8 Penn State (Friday, April 19, 6 pm) that will also air on BTN.