PISCATAWAY, N.J. — Rutgers took their first shot of the night at 2:08. By 8:37, they had taken three.
All three went in.
The Scarlet Knights beat Northwestern 4-0 on Friday night at Yurcak Field in front of 568, with Pius Ssebulime scoring at 2:08, Dan Karsten at 7:18 and Amer Lukovic at 8:37, and Lukovic adding a second at 70:47, 3:12 after Jim McElderry sent him back on. It was Rutgers’ first match on the Banks since Princeton closed the homestand on Sept. 15, and their third Big Ten win in four
tries.
Rutgers came home at 4-4-1 off a 4-1 loss at defending national champion Washington, where Zach Ramsey scored twice before the half-hour mark and the run of three straight ranked wins came to an end. The finishing complaint read 98 shots for 13 goals through nine matches. Friday it was 13 shots for four.
Northwestern arrived at 5-3-1 and unbeaten in the Big Ten under Russell Payne, in his sixth season in Evanston. The Wildcats opened conference play by beating then-No. 2 Maryland 4-0 on Sept. 11, the highest-ranked win of Payne’s tenure, drew 0-0 at Michigan State and beat Michigan 1-0 last Friday on Peter Riesz’s 15th-minute goal, playing the final hour a man down after Andrew Johnson’s second yellow card. Riesz and Italo Addimandi came in tied for the team lead with four goals apiece, and captain Bryant Mayer was named Big Ten Defensive Player of the Week on Tuesday. Johnson did not appear Friday.
The more personal storyline stood in the Rutgers goal. Rafael Ponce de Leon, the graduate transfer from Pennington, spent three seasons at Northwestern, left with 12 career clean sheets, fifth in program history, and made five first-half saves against Rutgers in Evanston last September in a 2-1 Wildcats win.
He faced his old teammates and did not concede.
Lineup
GK: Rafael Ponce de Leon
D: Simon Gorczowski, Devon Stopek, Nick Collins, Hector Criado
M: Pius Ssebulime, Zach Mastrodimos, William Pierce, Amer Lukovic, Francesco Di Ponzio
F: Dan Karsten
Subs: Joshua Jerome, Erick Ruiz, Braxton Montgomery, Thomas Angelone, Abubakar Mayanja, Jeffrey Bryjak, Dylan Carlson, Charlie Kitch, Noah Hannawald, Jaeden Gordon, Cedric Lemaire, Matty Lynch, Logan Brown
After two matches with the same eleven, McElderry made three changes, benching Erick Ruiz, Braxton Montgomery and Abubakar Mayanja for William Pierce, Karsten and Lukovic. The paperwork moved with the personnel, from six defenders, three midfielders and Mayanja up top in Columbus and Seattle to four, five and Karsten as the lone forward. Pierce, a substitute in both of those matches despite being named Big Ten Offensive Player of the Week in between, assisted the opener inside three minutes.
The half-hour change came anyway, three goals up, showing that McElderry’s substitution plan does not bend to the scoreline. Tonight, it was three, all at 31:54, with Joshua Jerome for Pierce, Ruiz for Karsten and Montgomery for Francesco Di Ponzio, 68 seconds after Karsten was booked. Thomas Angelone and Mayanja came on for Simon Gorczowski and Lukovic at halftime. Then the recalls arrived in one block at 67:35, with Lukovic, Di Ponzio, Pierce and Gorczowski all back on for Zach Mastrodimos, Jerome, Mayanja and Montgomery, and two of the four, Lukovic and Gorczowski, combined for the fourth goal 3:12 later. Karsten came back at 74:02 alongside Jeffrey Bryjak, and the bench emptied from there, four at 80:40, two at 83:24 and Logan Brown in goal at 85:44. Brown, Jaeden Gordon, Cedric Lemaire and Matty Lynch, none of whom played in Columbus or Seattle, all got on.
That made 18 substitutions and 24 players, and for the first time this season nobody in Scarlet went the full 90. Ponce de Leon had played every minute of the first nine matches and finished on 85:44. Devon Stopek, Nick Collins and Ssebulime came off at 80:40 with 81 minutes each, the most of any Rutgers outfield player.
Payne churned harder, with 20 changes that included Gino Cervoni for Dominic Pereira in goal at 74:02. Fritz Volmar was the only Wildcat to play all 90.
Baraka Tarleton, whose through ball set up Northwestern’s second goal against Rutgers last September, lasted 11 minutes.
Three Shots, Three Goals Before the Ninth Minute
Rutgers won the first corner of the night at 1:38, and 30 seconds later Ssebulime finished low to the right off Pierce and Karsten for a 1-0 lead. Northwestern had not yet attempted a shot.
The second came five minutes later. Lukovic and Collins worked the ball to Karsten, who put a right-footed shot into the bottom left corner at 7:18. A VAR review followed, and the goal stood.
Northwestern finally shot at 8:22, when Mayer forced Ponce de Leon into a save at the bottom center. Fifteen seconds later the ball was in the other net, as Stopek and Criado set up Lukovic, who finished left-footed into the bottom right at 8:37.
Three shots, three goals, six minutes and 29 seconds from the first to the last.
Payne did not wait long, sending Tyler Glassberg on for Andrew Millar and Tre Barrett on for Tarleton at 11:07, and the match turned scrappy. Barrett pulled one off target at 15:15, Lukovic missed at 17:16 and again at 26:02, and between 19:16 and 30:46 referee Youssef Elmessoussi whistled seven fouls, two of them by Glassberg. The last of the seven was Karsten’s on Glassberg, and it came with a yellow card for unsporting conduct.
Both benches moved on that stoppage. Payne sent Marco Silva, Addimandi, Seth Mahlmeister and Yuval Nimrodi on for Ethan Nakolo, Riesz, Aaron O’Reilly and Evrit Fisher, and McElderry made his triple change 68 seconds later. Ruiz needed 72 seconds to force Pereira into a save at the bottom center at 33:06, Rutgers’ fourth shot on target of the half and the first that did not go in.
Lukovic had a shot blocked at 37:51, Rutgers won corners at 37:56 and 39:02 and was caught offside at 39:17, and Northwestern’s only replies were a Glassberg attempt blocked at 40:28 and corners at 40:32 and 43:32.
At halftime Rutgers had seven shots, four on target and three goals. Northwestern had three shots and one on target. Corners were 4-3 Rutgers, fouls 8-7 Rutgers.
Northwestern’s first shot on goal had come at 8:22. Their second would not come until 68:10.
Northwestern Takes 11 Shots, and Lukovic Scores Again
McElderry put Angelone on for Gorczowski and Mayanja on for Lukovic at the break. Payne made three changes, bringing Riesz and O’Reilly straight back and sending Roy Omo-Obas on for Gabriel Smyth.
Mayanja went right at Pereira, with a shot blocked at 45:31, one off target at 48:05 and another blocked at 49:37, and Rutgers won a corner 20 seconds after the third. At 50:33 Mayer fouled Angelone and was booked for unsporting conduct, three days after being named the conference’s best defender of the week.
Then Northwestern pushed, and for 11 minutes they looked like the side that had put four past Maryland. From 57:02 to 68:10 the Wildcats took seven shots and won four corners. Glassberg had attempts blocked at 57:02 and 58:45, Riesz at 58:59 and 64:29, O’Reilly missed at 65:31 and Riesz missed again at 67:12. Payne brought Smyth back on with Millar at 60:44, and at 68:10 Smyth finally forced Ponce de Leon into his second save of the night, high to the right. The fourth of those corners came five seconds later and went nowhere.
McElderry had already sent his four starters back on at 67:35, 35 seconds before that save. Gorczowski gave away a foul at 70:20, and 27 seconds later he found Lukovic, who finished right-footed into the bottom right for 4-0, his second of the night, this one off the right foot.
Lukovic had been back on the field for 3:12.
Pereira lasted three more minutes. Cervoni replaced him at 74:02, after four goals on five Rutgers shots on target, and Riesz, Northwestern’s co-leader in goals, went off in the same wave with four shots and none on target. Karsten came back on at that stoppage, Pierce shot off target at 74:17, and Mahlmeister became the second Wildcat booked at 77:42.
The final 10 minutes leaned Northwestern’s way again, with corners at 82:37, 85:13, 85:44 and 85:48 and a Barrett shot blocked at 85:01. At 85:41 Smyth forced a third save from Ponce de Leon, this one at the top center, and three seconds later McElderry took his goalkeeper off for Brown with the clean sheet intact. Brown’s first job was to defend two corners in four seconds. He saw one more shot, a Barrett attempt off target at 86:54, and took the goal kick that followed.
Karsten shot off target at 87:36, Rutgers won corners at 89:36 and 90:00, and that was the match, a Rout on the Raritan that had been settled before the ninth minute. In the second half Northwestern took 11 shots, put two on target and won eight corners.
Rutgers put one second-half shot on target. It went in.
Rutgers stays home for Maryland on Tuesday, Oct. 6, at 6 p.m. on BTN, the same Maryland side Northwestern beat 4-0 on Sept. 11. The Scarlet Knights then go on the road Oct. 10, host Indiana on Oct. 16 and visit Penn State on Oct. 20. All six regular-season matches left are Big Ten matches, and Rutgers already has three conference wins banked.
The season numbers now read 5-4-1 overall and 3-1 in the Big Ten, with 111 shots and 17 goals for a conversion rate of 15.3 percent, 45 shots on goal, 54 corners, 131 fouls, 22 yellow cards and no red cards. The four goals matched the season high from the 4-1 home opener against Sacred Heart. Ponce de Leon has made 33 saves and conceded 11 goals across 10 matches. Three of those saves came Friday against the program that gave him 12 clean sheets, and none of the goals did.
On Sept. 11, Northwestern beat Maryland 4-0. On Friday, Rutgers beat Northwestern 4-0, and three of the four came before the ninth minute.
Maryland is four days away.
