Rutgers took 12 shots at No. 6 Iowa on Friday, gave up 30 and won 4-3 in double overtime. The Scarlet Knights gave up seven at No. 2 Northwestern on Sunday and lost 2-1 on a penalty corner with 2:54 left in regulation. Emily Nicholls made 16 saves in the first game and three in the second, and the team in front of her conceded one goal from 13 opposing corners across the weekend. It was the one that counted. The five-game winning streak is over, the Scarlet Knights are 10-7 and 4-3 in the Big Ten,
and one regular-season game remains. No. 11 Indiana is Friday.
Rutgers Took One Shot in Overtime and Scored
Ella Gandy inserted a corner 21 seconds in and Julia Claessens saved Martha Goodridge at 0:46. Iowa’s first corner came at 3:55, Amber Millard-Smith inserting, and Nicholls saved Dionne van Aalsum twice in nine seconds before Frederique van Cleef went wide. Gandy inserted again at 8:05, and Olivia Fraticelli scored seven seconds later off Anna Cogdell’s pass. This was Fraticelli’s 13th goal of the season and the 24th of her career, one more than Guillermina Causarano, with whom she had shared eighth in program history.
Iowa took six shots in the second quarter and Nicholls saved four. Claessens stopped Goodridge twice in 10 seconds after Gandy’s insert at 25:24, and Iowa answered with corners at 27:39 and 29:22, the second ending with Nicholls saving van Aalsum and van Cleef five seconds apart. Rutgers led 1-0 at the half and had been outshot 9-6.
Nicholls saved van Aalsum at 32:00 and van Cleef at 35:54, and Millard-Smith inserted twice in five seconds at 40:41 and 40:46, the second ending in another save on van Aalsum. Rutgers scored off its only corner of the quarter. The play-by-play logs it at 41:59 to Laura Loycke, and Loycke scored six seconds later off Goodridge’s pass. It was 2-0 at 42:05.
This score lasted 96 seconds.
Rachel Herbine found van Cleef at 43:41 for van Cleef’s 17th goal of the season. Herbine set up van Aalsum at 48:47 for her 15th, and van Cleef returned the pass at 50:52 for van Aalsum’s 16th. Iowa scored three times in 7:11, all from open play, and led 3-2. Gandy equalized 106 seconds later, unassisted, at 52:38. This was Rutgers’ only shot of the fourth quarter.
Van Aalsum went wide at 57:47 and the game went to overtime. Iowa took all six shots of the first overtime off four corners, and none went in. Eden Doucelin, green card, 67:47. Iowa’s next two chances came with Rutgers a player short. Nicholls saved van Cleef at 68:32, then saved Jordan Byers’ penalty stroke at 68:57. She saved van Aalsum again at 71:20.
Emma Uprichard came on at 71:47. At 73:38 she found Frederique Vernooij, and Vernooij scored with 1:22 left in the second overtime. The winning shot was Rutgers’ first shot since Gandy’s goal, about 20 minutes of game clock earlier.
Iowa put 19 of its 30 shots on goal. Van Aalsum took 16 and put 11 on target. This game was Rutgers’ highest-ranked win ever over Iowa, its second in Iowa City, the third ranked win of the season and the team’s fifth overtime game, the second they have finished before a shootout.
Northwestern’s Fourth Corner Went In
Talia Schenck scored with Rutgers’ first shot at 8:05, unassisted, working around a defender and finishing on the lunge. Ashley Sessa inserted Northwestern’s first two corners at 11:32 and 13:39. Nicholls saved Ilse Tromp off the first and Olivia Bent-Cole went high off the second. Nicholls saved Sessa at 15:42.
At 21:57 a Northwestern pass into the circle came off several sticks, and Kiera Sack picked it up, worked past a defender and finished it, unassisted, to tie it 1-1. Schenck’s goal was Rutgers’ only shot of the first half.
The third quarter was Rutgers’ best. Olivia Fraticelli was blocked at 34:47 and Loycke inserted the corner that followed at 34:48. Juliana Boon saved Anna Cogdell at 34:59. Loycke inserted again at 38:13 and Goodridge went wide at 38:22. Sessa’s third corner, at 42:00, ended with Bent-Cole blocked.
Goodridge’s miss was Rutgers’ last shot.
With the fourth drawing to a close, it looked as if Rutgers was hurdling towards another overtime game against a ranked foe. Yet, Northwestern had other plans.
Nicholls saved Bent-Cole at 52:31. Sessa inserted at 56:59, and Tromp scored off the stick stop seven seconds later, assisted by Bent-Cole and Sessa, for her team-leading 12th goal. Rutgers did not take a shot in the fourth quarter. Twice this weekend they went 20 minutes or more of game clock without one. In Iowa City the next shot won the game, but in Evanston, there was no next shot.
Northwestern outshot Rutgers 7-4 and put five on goal to Rutgers’ two. Northwestern is 16-1 and 7-0 in the Big Ten and has clinched at least a share of the conference title. They have won six straight in a series it now leads 14-5, after Rutgers beat ranked Northwestern teams five times between 2018 and 2022.
The Card Count Went to Overtime Again
Last week, the team card count showed 21 cards in 15 games and noted that the cards had arrived on the day the game was close, with the next two on the road. Both games this weekend were close.
Rutgers took one card.
That went to Eden Doucelin, green card, 67:47, in the first overtime at Iowa. It was Doucelin’s second card in as many overtimes, after her yellow against Michigan. Iowa took a shot and a penalty stroke inside the two minutes, and Nicholls saved both. Iowa took no cards, and there no cards for either team against Northwestern.
That is 22 cards in 17 games, and one across two road games against top-six opponents.
The scoreline did not notice.
Rutgers took zero cards against No. 5 Virginia in the second week of the season and lost 2-1. They took zero at No. 2 Northwestern and lost 2-1. In each of the last two overtimes, a Doucelin card was followed inside its time by an opponent’s penalty stroke, and neither stroke went in. The cards have not decided a game in two weeks. Four shots against the second-best team in the country decided Sunday.
Rutgers closes the regular season at the Bauer Complex on Friday at noon against No. 11 Indiana. The Big Ten Tournament opens Wednesday, Nov. 4, in Columbus, Ohio, where Rutgers beat Ohio State in a shootout on Oct. 9.
Rutgers found out this weekend that they can survive 30 shots from the sixth-best team in the country and lose to seven from the second-best.
Indiana asks what happens when Rutgers takes more than four of its own.
