No. 19 Men’s Lacrosse Faces St. John’s Tuesday

Tuesday, March 10

Queens, N.Y.

3:00 PM

Rutgers University

St. John's

Photo by: Dakota Moyer

No. 19 Men’s Lacrosse Faces St. John’s Tuesday

Mar 09 | Men's Lacrosse

Live Stats Watch on ESPN+

3 PM Road Contest

PISCATAWAY, N.J. – Rutgers men's lacrosse has a final midweek game this Tuesday. RU heads to Queens to play a former BIG EAST rival, facing St. John's at 3 p.m. at Cox Family Field at Belson Stadium. Previous RU games at St. John's, most recently in 2022, were held at DaSilva Memorial Field.

About Rutgers

Rutgers will enter the midweek game with a 5-2 overall record following a loss on Saturday at No. 3 Princeton. Both of RU's losses have come to ranked teams in No. 12 Army and No. 3 Princeton, with the Scarlet Knights defeating Jacksonville, Stony Brook, Villanova, LIU and Hofstra.

Colin Kurdyla leads the team with 15 goals, 10 assists and 25 points. Kurdyla, a Bridgewater, N.J. native, was added to the Tewaaraton Award Watch List last week. Greyson Vorgang also has 15 goals on the year, placing second on the team with 20 points.

Bennett Raphalian moved into the starting lineup at Princeton and responded with two goals. He has played in three games this season and scored in each of them. With four goals this season, the sophomore already surpassed his total from last season.

Defensively, Connor Udovich leads the team with 11 caused turnovers. Dylan Groff is second with eight, also leading non faceoff players with 17 ground balls.

Among RU's specialists, John Scarelli is 54-of-111 on faceoffs (48.6%) with Jake Rainero taking 30 and Brock Desmarais taking 29. Goalkeeper Cardin Stoller, also on the Tewaaraton Award Watch List, has a 52.7% save percentage and 10.68 goals-against-average.

The Scarlet Knights remain in the rankings this week at No. 19 in the Inside Lacrosse Media Poll. The publication also ranks four of RU's future Big Ten opponents – No. 7 Ohio State, No. 9 Penn State, No. 10 Maryland and No. 12 Johns Hopkins.

About St. John's

St. John's stands at 2-4 overall this season. The two teams share one mutual opponent thus far, Hofstra, who St. John's defeated 9-8. The Red Storm also topped Quinnipiac (20-8) and lost to Delaware (12-11), Lafayette (11-9), NJIT (17-10) and Bryant (11-7). St. John's was picked sixth in the preseason conference poll. Since the return from the Covid-shortened season in 2020, St. John's holds a 13-62 record

Noah Plenn, a redshirt freshman via Delaware, leads SJU with 12 goals, eight assists and 20 points. Adrian Nowak was named Preseason All-BIG EAST. Nowak had 24 goals and 20 assists last season and is second on the team this year with 10 goals and 14 points.

In the goal, Matt Nelson has a 11.64 goals-against-average and 51.4% save percentage. Ethan Wiegand is 36-of-68 at the faceoff X (52.9%).

Head coach Justin Turri took the helm of the program in June of 2022, previously working in the Big Ten as an assistant coach at Michigan. When Turri left the Wolverines to take the St. John's head job, Michigan hired Scott Bieda for his spot, with Bieda now working as an assistant coach at Rutgers.

About the Series

Rutgers and St. John's are set to play for the 33^rd time all-time, dating back to 1984. RU has had the upper hand, holding a 25-7 advantage in the all-time series. The Scarlet Knights are currently on a 10-game winning streak against the Red Storm, dating back to 2014. The Scarlet Knights have won the past four games (2020, 2022, 2023, 2024) by a combined margin of 81-33. Rutgers has won the past three road games against St. John's, dating back to 2015, and are 18-5 all-time in road games against St. John's.

Last season, RU dominated the Red Storm for a 21-11 win. Colin Kurdyla and Colin Kelly each had four goals and Shane Murphy had a hat trick versus the Red Storm for the second time in his career. Murphy has two career three-goal games, and both came versus St. John's (2023, 2025). In RU's last trip to play at St. John's, the Scarlet Knights won 23-6.

Up Next

Rutgers returns home to SHI Stadium on Saturday, March 14 at 12 pm. RU hosts Bellarmine in the final home non-conference game in the LaCROSSE Out Cancer game. Supporters can donate to the cause to support the Pediatric Cancer Research Foundation by visiting here.