PISCATAWAY, N.J. – Rutgers men's lacrosse returns home to SHI Stadium for a Saturday noon contest against Loyola. The Scarlet Knights game against the Greyhounds will be live streamed by B1G+ with Ralph Bednarczyk and Alex Schoen on the call. It will be Millitary Appreciation Day at the stadium.

About Rutgers

Rutgers sits at 2-2, with wins at No. 20 Lehigh and over LIU, and losses to Stony Brook and at No. 12 Army. Two standouts for RU in last weekend's game at Army were faceoff specialist Matthew Paolatto and goalkeeper Cardin Stoller.

Paolatto won 12-of-15 faceoffs (80%) while facing off against Army's Will Colletti (a First Team All-American last season). Paolatto had RU's best performance at the X in an 83-game span (since Connor Harryman went 22-of-25 for 88% against Lafayette in the 2018 season opener).  He became the first RU faceoff man to win 80% of his faceoffs in a game against a ranked opponent in over 15 seasons, while forcing Colletti to a career-worst performance, his first time below 33% while taking more than three faceoffs in 48 games.

Cardin Stoller made 16 saves for RU. He averages 12.0 saves per game, best in the Big Ten, while also 10^th nationally in goals-against-average (6.94).

The Scarlet Knights have held their opponents under 10 goals in each of the first four games of the season. That marked the first time doing so for RU in a four-game stretch since 2018. The Scarlet Knights' scoring defense is sixth nationally (6.75) and RU is also top-10 in clearing percentage (eighth, 92.3%).

RU bench boss Brian Brecht, was served as an assistant coach at Loyola from 2002-2004 prior to getting his first head coaching job at Siena, has guided RU to an average of 9.5 wins per season over the past eight full seasons.

About Loyola

Under 20^th year head coach Charley Toomey, Loyola has opened the year at 0-3. However, the Greyhounds have faced three teams ranked in the top-11 nationally. After an opening weekend loss at Georgetown, Loyola had a pair of one-goal losses to top-five Big Ten teams, falling to No. 4 Maryland in overtime (8-7) and No. 5 Johns Hopkins (9-8).

Junior Matthew Minicus, a all-league selection last season who has scored 66 goals in 33 career games, leads the team this season in goals (five), assists (five) and points (10). First-time starting goalkeeper Max Watkinson has a 54.5% save percentage and 9.94 goals-against-average with 36 saves in the cage. Carson Hall is 20-of-43 on faceoffs (46.5%) and at 38.8% for his career across 263 faceoffs. Defensively, former Scarlet Knight Remi Reynolds was a preseason all-Patriot League selection and leads the team with nine caused turnovers.

About the Series

Rutgers and Loyola have met 15 times all-time. The Greyhounds lead the series 11-4, having won the first seven meetings from 1990 to 2006 and then 11 of the first 12. However, RU has had the better of late, running off three straight wins from 2022 to 2024.

In 2022, RU won 13-12 at Loyola, closing out the win with a 5-1 run to overcome a late three goal deficit.

2023 was Loyola's last visit to SHI Stadium. With the Greyhounds ranked No. 5 nationally, RU claimed a 10-6 win, with current senior Dante Kulas providing a hat trick.

Last season, RU went on the road and downed the Greyounds 13-5. Kulas had three goals and an assist in that contest.

Up Next

Starting with the Loyola game, Rutgers will play four out of five games at SHI Stadium, with all five coming in New Jersey. After facing the Greyhounds, RU hosts St. Joe's (March 1), then travels to No. 5 Princeton (March 8). St. John's (March 11) and UMass (March 15) come to town the following week.