PISCATAWAY, N.J. – Rutgers men's lacrosse begins Big Ten Conference play this weekend. The Scarlet Knights travel to Baltimore, where they will take on Johns Hopkins, facing a Blue Jays squad that is ranked No. 11 in both the media and Coaches Poll this week.
The game (1 pm) will be live streamed on ESPN+ with Paul Carcaterra and Chris Cotter on the call. There will be a live stream of the contest live via ESPN+, then a tape-delayed re-broadcast at 2 pm on Monday.
Rutgers came in at 27
th in the initial RPI release. The Scarlet Knights are 4-5 overall. By the RPI, four of their five losses are to top-20 programs, with losses to No. 1 (Princeton), No. 9 (Army), 11 (UMass) and 19 (Saint Joe's).
Rutgers' scoring defense is 12
th nationally at 8.44 goals per game allowed. The Scarlet Knights started the season by holding each of its first five opponents to single-digit goals, the team's longest streak since 2010. RU then allowed 11 goals in each of the next four games and have not yet surrendered more than 11 goals in a game. This marks the first time that RU has not allowed more than 11 goals in each of the first nine games of the season since 2017 and just the second time doing so since 2006.
Goalkeeper
Cardin Stoller, a member of the Tewaaraton Award Watch List, has made double-digit saves in every game this season. He holds an 8.39 goals-against-average and a 60.3 save percentage on the year.
Rutgers has also excelled facing off.
Matthew Paolatto has won 64.6% of his faceoffs, a mark that is best in the Big Ten and sixth nationally.
Ethan Barnard has also contributed 20 faceoff wins, including a 6-of-8 performance Saturday against UMass.
Defensively,
Ryan Splaine leads the team with 13 caused turnovers.
Tommy Mendyke has 12, matching the senior's previous career-high.
Ben Stephanos has 11, one shy of the fifth-year players' previous career-high.
Rutgers offense has produced just 86 goals across nine games, an average of 9.5 per game, which includes outputs in its midweek games of 17 vs. LIU and 21 vs. St. John's. RU has 38 goals in its seven weekend contests (5.4 goals per game).
Rutgers offense is continuing to gel and grow over the course of the season, seeking to overcome youth, inexperience and a lack of time in the team's systems. Of the 16 players who have scored multiple goals this season, 11 of them are in their first or second collegiate season seeing game action. Of the other five, four are transfers (Kelly, Juengerkes, Borges, Mongillo), who combined had played in two games as a Scarlet Knight prior to this season. The only player to score at least two goals this season for RU that has played in three or more seasons at Rutgers is senior
Dante Kulas.
Extended further, 22 players overall have scored a goal for RU this season. Only two of those 22 have played more than two seasons at RU prior to this year,
Dante Kulas and
Logan Peters. 13 of the 22 goal scorers for Rutgers this season are underclassmen athletically, and of the other nine, seven are transfers, with six of those transfers in their first season with the program.
Four of the top 11 goal-scorers are freshmen athletically (
JJ Aiello,
Nate Austin-Johnstone,
Greyson Vorgang, Hayden Sommer). The other seven include three sophomores athletically (
Colin Kurdyla,
Colin Zeller,
Shane Murphy), making seven of the team's top 11 goal scorers underclassmen on the field.
From last season, nine of the 13 players to score multiple goals last season are no longer on the roster. RU returned just sophomore
Colin Kurdyla, senior
Dante Kulas, senior
Logan Peters, and junior LSM
Ryan Splaine from that group. Only Kurdyla and Kulas returned among the team's top nine goal-scorers last season.
Johns Hopkins enters the matchup at 6-2 overall. The Blue Jays have played just three games at home (2-1) and five on the road (4-1). JHU's losses have come to a pair of teams in the top-10 of this week's RPI, UNC (3) and Syracuse (10). The team has been ranked as high as third nationally this season (Feb. 17 media poll) and spent two weeks in the top-five. Head coach Peter Milliman is in his fifth season at the helm, with a 40-31 record at Hopkins (105-67 overall).
Hunter Chauvette (17 goals) is second in the Big Ten at 2.13 goals per game. Russell Melendez is third at 2.0 goals and fourth in the Big Ten at 3.29 points per game. Matt Collison (23 points) shares the team-lead with Melendez with 23 points, while Chauvette has 22 and Brooks English (six goals, team-high 14 assists) has 20.
Logan Callahan has won 61.2% of faceoffs (11
th nationally) and is eighth in the country with 7.5 ground balls per game. In goal, Luke Staudt has a 45.0% save percentage and 8.43 saves per game (10.29 GAA). Staudt is in his first season at JHU following two seasons as the starter at Loyola, where he had a 54.6% save percentage. Rutgers scored 12 goals on him at Loyola in 2024 in the first 36 minutes of the game, seeing him pulled from the contest. The Scarlet Knights also scored 10 goals against him in 2023. Current Senior
Dante Kulas had a hat trick in each of those games.
Rutgers is 9-37 all-time against Johns Hopkins, in a series that dates back to 1920. The two schools joined the Big Ten in 2015, and since then, the series is 6-6. Rutgers' last win at Homewood Field came on March 20, 2021, a 15-9 win. Since 2015, RU is 2-4 at Homewood Field against Johns Hopkins, also winning a "neutral site" meeting over the Blue Jays in the 2016 Big Ten Tournament Semifinals hosted by JHU.
- Fourth win in the last seven games with Johns Hopkins.
- 10th all-time win over Johns Hopkins.
- Fourth win over a ranked Johns Hopkins team since 2016.
Rutgers continues Big Ten play next weekend on the road. RU travels to No. 9 Ohio State, meeting the Buckeyes in Columbus on Saturday, March 29. In this week's Media Poll ahead of league play starting, Big Ten teams are ranked 1 (Maryland), 2 (Penn State), 9 (Ohio State) and 11 (Johns Hopkins). RU has 3 road games (JHU, OSU, PSU) and two home games (Maryland, Michigan) on this year's conference slate.
