PISCATAWAY, N.J.- No. 16 Rutgers field hockey is set to begin the 2025 season this week, starting at 11 a.m. on Friday by hosting Wagner, then taking a trip up to Vermont for a noon contest Sunday.
Friday's game will be live streamed by B1G+, with Dom Savino on the call. With an early start time for the regular season home opener, the Scarlet Knights have a special promotion for the 'Back 2 Bauer' Game. The first 50 fans will receive a bagel sandwich giveaway, courtesy of O'Bagel.
Sunday's game at Vermont's Moulton Winder Field can be viewed on AmericaEast.TV.
Rutgers enters the season ranked at No. 16 in the NFHCA Preseason Coaches Poll. Since the Scarlet Knights first earned a ranking under
Meredith Civico in 2017, the Scarlet Knights have earned a ranking at one point each season, including every preseason poll since 2018.
After opening the season at home against Wagner, the Scarlet Knights are away from home for their next four games, returning to Bauer on September 14 when they host Princeton.
Rutgers is 11-2 in season openers under head coach
Meredith Civico. The Scarlet Knights are 13-5 against non-conference foes over the past two seasons.
Rutgers field hockey had three players named to the preseason Big Ten Players to Watch List.
Anna Cogdell,
Paulina Niklaus and
Puck Winter were all recognized by the league office. The trio all earned all-conference recognition to close out last season as well.
Cogdell returns for her sophomore campaign after being recognized on the Big Ten All-Freshman Team in her debut campaign. The native of Badingham, England started all 17 games at midfield, had two goals and an assist, and was named the Big Ten Freshman of the Week after the team's win over No. 7 Iowa. She was also named to the NFHCA National Academic Squad.
Niklaus returns to the squad after an All-American campaign last year. The German was a Third Team All-American, First Team All-Big Ten, First Team All-Region and All-Big Ten Tournament team selection last season. It was her second straight season as an all-conference and all-region selection, and she has scored 10 goals and seven assists in 34 career starts.
Winter returns for her fourth season as a Scarlet Knight as the program's all-time leader in defensive saves, posting 25 in her career after leading the NCAA in 2023 (with 12) and 2024 (with nine) and stands at ninth all-time in NCAA history in the stat. Winter is a two-time All-Big Ten and three-time All-Region player, and the back was the 2022 Big Ten Freshman of the Year. Across 55 career starts she also has scored 12 goals.
Additionally, six student athletes from Rutgers were recognized by USA Field Hockey in the selections for the 2025 Senior Nexus Championship.
Olivia Fraticelli,
Dani Gindville,
Maddie Kidd and
Emily Nicholls were selected to compete, while
Natalie Arnold and
Maddie Olshemski were named as alternates.
Rutgers finished last season at 8-9 overall. The team was No. 14 in the RPI, the highest RPI for a team that did not make the NCAA Tournament. RU played eight of its 17 games against NCAA Tournament teams and 10 games against teams in the top-20 of the RPI, including six games against top-10 RPI teams. Seven of the nine losses were to NCAA Tournament teams.
RU has won 51 of their past 78 games over the past four seasons. During the year, RU defeated four ranked teams: No. 3 Ohio State, No. 7 Iowa, No. 7 Ohio State, and No. 17 Penn State. The team was ranked in the top-20 for numerous weeks in both the NFHCA Coaches Poll and the RPI rankings.
Since 2018, field hockey is 84-47, a winning percentage of 64%, with over half of those wins coming against ranked teams. Rutgers has 17 ranked wins in the past five seasons and 42 ranked wins since 2018, which includes 16 top-10 wins since 2021. In 2018, RU went to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 32 years, then made two additional NCAA Tournaments over the next five years. The team set the program record for wins in 2021 (19) and in 2023 had the second most wins in program history (16). RU was the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament in 2021 after winning the Big Ten Tournament on home turf.
Rutgers field hockey alumn Katie Larmour was recently honored with her first ever selection to the senior national team for her country. Larmour earned six caps with Team Ireland this summer, playing against Team USA in an exhibition match in Charlotte, then competing for Team Ireland in early August in the EuroHockey Championships.
Alumn Iris Langejans also recently begun a professional career back home in the Netherlands, signing with HDM Dames 1 to play at the highest level of Dutch professional field hockey.
Wagner field hockey head coach Aubrey Mytych is the sister of Rutgers' wrestling assistant coach Steve Mytych. She enters her second season at the helm at Wagner, being named the interim head coach shortly before the start of the 2024 season and having the interim tag removed in October after starting 9-5 with a program record four consecutive shutouts.
Last season, Wagner finished with a 12-7 record. The Seahwaks advanced to the NEC Championship Game as the top overall seed (first ever outright NEC regulat season crown) in the conference tournament, and were No. 49 in the RPI, ahead of one Big Ten team (Michigan State) and three Big East programs.
This season, Wagner was predicted to finish second in the NEC preseason poll. This is the fifth straight season they are pegged as a top-three squad in the preseason.
Wagner is captained by Hailey Bianchino (a native of Hillsborough, N.J., playing her high school field hockey 14 miles from RU) and Clair Evans. Saar van Dalen returns after being named the NEC Goalkeeper of the Year and First Team All-NEC. Wagner brings in 10 freshmen and two transfers for 13 returners with 12 newcomers.
This will be the first lifetime meeting between Rutgers and Wagner.
Vermont, an NCAA Tournament team last season, finished last season with an 11-9 record overall, and were 7-1 at home, placing at No. 40 in the RPI. After a 2-6 start, the Catamounts had nine wins in the final 12 games of the season, running through the America East Tournament as the No. 4 seed, winning three games in four days to clinch a NCAA Tournament bid. Vermont played Miami of Ohio in a play-in game, falling 2-1.
In 2025, the Catamounts were projected to finish second in the America East preseason poll, just behind future RU opponent New Hampshire. Sophia Lefranc and Merle Vaandrager were named to the preseason All-Conference team. Lefranc had eight goals and four assists last season, being named Second Team All-Region. The goalkeeper Vaandrager had a .789 save percentage.
This will be the fifth time that Rutgers has faced Vermont, holding a 3-1 record in the first four games. Last season, RU faced the Catamounts for the first time in 11 years, taking a 5-0 victory in the season opener, with all five goals in the game scored by players no longer on the RU roster. Current captain
Paulina Niklaus had two assists. RU had a 28-9 advantage in shots in that contest.
Previously, RU won games in 2013 and 2007, also playing in 2006. The last trip to Vermont for RU was in 2013, a 5-2 win. That was the second season for
Meredith Civico as the Scarlet Knights head coach.
Vermont will open the season at home on Friday by hosting UMass under head coach Kate Pfeifer, who enters her 11
th season at the program's helm. Pfeifer played in the Big Ten at Michigan, captaining the Wolverines to a Big Ten title and Elite Eight appearance as a senior.
For Rutgers head coach
Meredith Civico, Vermont was where her collegiate coaching career started. After her collegiate playing career ended, the recent grad was working as a snowboarding instructor at Sugarbush Resort in Warren, Vermont. While working there, Civico connected with the Vermont coaching staff, who were looking for people to help in coaching their camps.
Despite just having graduated from college, Civico had some coaching experience in her background. While in undergrad at Maryland, Civico had to take a redshirt season in 2004 due to an injury, and during that time, stayed involved with the program in a player-coach role. She returned to the field for the 2005 season, contributed on the field as her team won the national title. Civico parlayed experience and the initial opportunity with Vermont into a role as a volunteer coach for UVM, and eventually spent three seasons on the Catamounts staff. Her time on the staff coincided with success for the program, as she helped a squad that had an 11-44 record in the three prior years immediately record back-to-back double-digit victory season. That time included the first two meetings between RU and Vermont, with the squads matching up in Piscataway in 2006 and 2007.
While Civico had begun to think about a coaching career dating back to her time as a Terp, when she was helping the staff during her redshirt season, once the opportunity at Vermont emerged, it all happened quickly for her. Following her time with the Catamounts, Civico spent one year as an assistant at Towson, then joined the Rutgers coaching staff as an assistant. In January of 2012, Civico was hired as the Scarlet Knights head coach. Just 28 years old and only six years removed from her time on the ski slopes of Vermont where she first began her coaching journey, Civico took the helm of the program. Since then, there has been no looking back, as the Ocean City, N.J. native has guided her home state program to 135 wins, three NCAA Tournaments and one Big Ten title since then.
Puck Winter is on the top-10 all time in NCAA history in defensive saves. The reigning two-time NCAA stat leader in the statistic, Winter is tied for 9
th in NCAA history with 25
career defensive saves.
With one more defensive save, Winter become the outright Big Ten leader in career defensive saves, and would have the second most defensive save of any D-I NCAA player since 2001 (24 seasons).
- Michelle Cargen, Holy Cross (1987-90): 58
- Susan Crafts, Virginia (1982-85): 38
- Amy Gielle, William & Mary (1993-96): 34
- Beth Senic, Ohio State (1985-88): 31
- Angie King, Quinnipiac (2013-16): 31
- Chantal Lacroix, Holy Cross (1990-93): 30
- Wendy Barker, Holy Cross (1985-88): 29
- Monica McCorry, Bucknell (1998-01): 29
T-9. Puck Winter, Rutgers: 25
T-9. Andrea Wiggins (1988-91): 25
T-9. Jenn Sciulli, Ohio State (2008-11): 25
T-9. Emily Trudeau, Pacific (2009-12): 25
Since her first day as head coach, the foundation of Rutgers Field Hockey has been the culture, about intentionally creating a family atmosphere that allows student-athletes to thrive as students, as athletes and as people. By attracting and recruiting the very best players and staff over her fourteen years as head coach, and giving them an environment in which they flourish,
Meredith Civico has built the program into one of the top in the Big Ten – and the nation. The core tenant for the program has been the establishment of a strong, positive culture where progression is expected, differences are celebrated and family is everything. The feeling of togetherness in the locker room and when competing is what makes this team special and unique.
"Culture is something you have to work at every single day; it doesn't just happen," Civico explained. "We have this acronym: RUTGERS that stands for our core values: Relentless, United, Tenacious, Gritty, Excellence, Respect, Strength. These aren't just words on a wall – they're how we live. We're not just coaching a sport; we're coaching people. Sports are played by people, and people are the most important."
