Rutgers took 23 shots at UAlbany on Friday and scored seven. It took 19 at Colgate on Sunday, spent 14 of the fourth quarter’s 15 minutes with 10 players on the field and scored the only goal of it. Two unranked opponents, two wins, and the first weekend this season the Scarlet Knights have taken both games. Rutgers scored 10 goals in two days after scoring 13 in its first six, and it is 4-4 and back to even for the first time since the opening weekend. La Salle visits the Bauer Complex on Sept.
27, and Penn State opens Big Ten play there five days after that.
Seven Goals and a Hat Trick Off the Bench
Laura Loycke came on for Olivia Fraticelli at 3:12 and scored 109 seconds later. Talia Schenck had forced Merle Vaandrager into a save at 4:54, and at 5:01 Loycke had the first goal of the game and her third of the season.
UAlbany answered from the only place it managed anything all afternoon. Mara Kuskes inserted a penalty corner at 6:33 and Quinty Reumer finished a Pilar Lorenzini ball at 6:40. Rutgers led again at 10:58, nine seconds after Vaandrager had saved Frederique Vernooij, when Emma Uprichard scored her first goal of the season. Seven Rutgers shots in the first quarter, two goals.
The second quarter ran the same pattern twice. Fraticelli had a shot blocked at 24:51 and scored off an Olivia Stazi assist at 24:54. Kuskes inserted again at 25:33 and scored it herself at 25:39, assisted by Jette Kurz. Kurz took a green card at 28:48, and eight seconds later Loycke scored from Vernooij for 4-2 at the interval.
Then the corners finally paid. Vernooij inserted at 40:36 and Anna Cogdell’s shot was blocked. Vernooij inserted at 40:45 and Cogdell was blocked again. Vernooij inserted at 40:54 and Cogdell was blocked a third time. Vernooij inserted at 41:00, and at 41:03 Cogdell scored, Schenck and Vernooij credited. Four corners in 27 seconds, four Cogdell attempts, one goal.
Fraticelli scored unassisted 24 seconds after that and Loycke completed the hat trick at 44:24 from a Fraticelli assist, three goals in three minutes and 21 seconds. Rutgers did not score in the fourth quarter and did not need to. Emily Nicholls saw six UAlbany shots, all six on goal, and saved four. Loycke finished with four shots, four on goal and three goals in 33 minutes off the bench, the second Rutgers hat trick of the season after Fraticelli’s at Wagner.
Rutgers had not scored seven in a game since Wagner either.
A Player Down for 14 of the Last 15 Minutes
Rutgers took one shot in the first quarter at Colgate and scored it. Emma Uprichard inserted a penalty corner at 11:48 and Lauren Iaccio, a freshman back, scored at 11:49 with Schenck and Vernooij credited. Rutgers also committed 17 of its 35 fouls in those 15 minutes and led 1-0 at the end of them.
Marissa Buck saved Schenck at 17:58 and Cogdell at 23:13, both off Rutgers corners, before Vernooij scored from Schenck at 28:47. Colgate changed goalkeepers at the half and had its goal 48 seconds into the third quarter, Lauren Widdowson inserting at 30:40 and scoring at 30:48 from Aiden Cronk and Morgan Willis.
Colgate took five penalty corners in that quarter and scored on the first one. Kyleigh Welusz was saved at 33:04, Alli Troth was blocked at 33:10 and again at 33:17, and Kate Rose was saved at 34:08. Rutgers took three of its own and got two shots on goal out of them, Iaccio saved by Kennedy Glinn at 32:25 and saved again at 32:28.
The fourth quarter is where it got strange. Martha Goodridge, green card, 45:27. Julia Vinas Nieto, yellow card, 47:30. Colgate had a corner at 47:43 with Rutgers down to 10 players, and at 48:09 Anna Cogdell scored unassisted for 3-1. Olivia Beattie took a yellow at 57:54 and Rutgers finished the match a player short as well.
From Goodridge’s green to the horn, Rutgers spent 14 minutes and 33 seconds of the final 15 with 10 on the field. Colgate took three corners in that stretch and put two shots on goal, both Willis, both saved by Nicholls at 56:22 and 56:26. Rutgers took seven shots in the quarter, more than in any other, and Loycke, who had scored three times on Friday, did not take one all afternoon.
Rutgers scored the only goal of the quarter it spent short-handed.
Twenty-One Seconds
Rutgers conceded three goals this weekend and all three arrived within eight seconds of a penalty corner insert.
Kuskes inserted at 6:33 and Reumer scored at 6:40. Kuskes inserted at 25:33 and scored it herself at 25:39. Widdowson inserted at 30:40 and scored at 30:48. Seven seconds, six seconds, eight seconds. Twenty-one seconds out of the 120 minutes Rutgers played produced every goal it gave up.
This column counted three UCONN goals inside 17 seconds of an insert last week. That is six goals in the last three games, every one of them off a corner, against two opponents who took 12 corners between them and one that took 10.
Emily Nicholls played all 120 minutes, faced 12 shots on goal and saved nine. She saved four of the six UAlbany put on frame and five of the six from Colgate, including the two Willis shots four seconds apart with Rutgers a player down. The three that beat her were the three corners.
The Card Count Stopped Being Quiet
This column wrote last week that Rutgers had taken two cards in two games and that it was the first thing this season the team had fixed without something else breaking in its place.
Rutgers took five this weekend.
Talia Schenck, green card, 14:36 at UAlbany. Frederique Vernooij, yellow card, 50:43. Martha Goodridge, green card, 45:27 at Colgate. Julia Vinas Nieto, yellow card, 47:30. Olivia Beattie, yellow card, 57:54. That is 14 cards in eight games, three of them inside 13 minutes of a game Rutgers led by one goal. Vinas Nieto has taken a card in two of the last three. UAlbany took one all afternoon and Colgate took none.
What happened next is the part that has changed since Monmouth. Against Monmouth a two-minute suspension turned a one-goal deficit into a two-goal deficit. At Colgate, Rutgers spent almost the entire fourth quarter at 10, gave up three corners and two shots in it, and scored the only goal of it. That is still not a defense of the cards.
Rutgers has a week before La Salle visits the Bauer Complex on Sunday, Sept. 27, and Penn State opens Big Ten play there on Oct. 2. Five of the eight opponents so far have been ranked and all four losses have come against them. Rutgers has not lost to an unranked team this season, and they have not played a Big Ten opponent yet.
Rutgers spent six weeks finding out what the team looks like against ranked teams. They spent this weekend finding out what they look like against everyone else, and the answer was 10 goals, four different scorers and a hat trick from a substitute.
La Salle is the last of those before Penn State.
