PISCATAWAY, N.J. — Nebraska had not conceded a goal in 270 minutes of soccer. Rutgers took 11 shots at Avery Gillahan on Sunday afternoon, but still extended the Cornhuskers’ streak to 360 minutes.
The Scarlet Knights and the Cornhuskers drew 0-0 at Yurcak Field on Bark in the Park, with Olivia Bodmer making five saves at one end and Gillahan four at the other, the last two in the final minute. It was the 10th meeting between the programs and the eighth draw, and Nebraska has still never beaten Rutgers.
The running thread of the season held, too. Rutgers won the shot count 11-9 and lost the count on target 5-4, which has been close to the whole story of this team, enough of the ball and not enough of the goalkeeper.
Nebraska arrived 3-3-7 and 1-2-4 in the Big Ten, on the second leg of an eastern road swing that opened Thursday with a 0-0 draw at Maryland in which the Huskers took four shots in 90 minutes. Before that came a 0-0 draw at home with No. 20 Wisconsin on Oct. 4 and a 1-0 win at No. 20 Michigan on Sept. 27, when senior defender Reese Borer headed in the winner with less than two minutes to play. It was Nebraska’s first ranked win since 2022 and its first on the road since 2018. It is also the last goal Nebraska has scored.
This is a team that draws. Sunday was its eighth in 14 matches and its third straight 0-0. John Walker, in his 33rd season, has coached every season Nebraska women’s soccer has played, and his side has faced seven ranked opponents already this fall and gone 1-2-4 against them.
The engine of the team is Gillahan, a senior from Strongsville, Ohio, on her third program in four years after three seasons at Iowa State and a redshirt junior year at Auburn. She arrived in Lincoln with eight career shutouts and 160 career saves, led the Big Ten with 54 saves as of Oct. 5, and Sunday was her fourth straight clean sheet.
Rutgers now leads the series 2-0-8. Its first win over Nebraska, 1-0 at Yurcak in 2021, ended a run of six straight draws to open the series, and the second came 3-2 in Piscataway in 2024.
Ten meetings. Eight draws.
Lineup
GK: Olivia Bodmer
D: Julia Joseph, Morgan Hippeli, Lindsey Hailey, Patricia Tsokos
M: Gabriela Gil, Tommi Valente
F: Lilia Calvert, Reilly McGlinn, Ashley Baran, Marian Dunne
Subs: Sophia Stiles, Olivia Russomanno, Audrey Cain, Lily Ann Phillips, Amanda Thornton, Riley Morris, Dina Bojkovic
Mike O’Neill started the same eleven for a third straight match, and Gil was in it three days after going down briefly against Northwestern. She played 56 minutes in two shifts and did not return after coming off at 64:41. Charlotte Garcia, Sarah Martinez and Madelyn O’Neill, all used on Thursday, did not appear, while Dina Bojkovic came back into the rotation for a nine-minute first-half shift. Emma Johns and Jayme Malanda were absent again.
The substitution count came down for a second straight match, to 25 changes, seven substitutes and 18 players, from 29, nine and 20 against Northwestern and 39, 11 and 22 at Iowa. The first half went in three waves. Sophia Stiles replaced Hippeli at 25:06, Olivia Russomanno and Thornton came on for Ashley Baran and Marian Dunne at 30:48, and Lily Ann Phillips, Bojkovic and Riley Morris replaced Calvert, Reilly McGlinn and Gil at 36:27. All six starters came back at 45:00, the third straight match Mike O’Neill has restored his starting eleven in full at the interval.
The second half added 13 more changes between 61:20 and 86:36. Calvert, Valente and Baran each went off and came back. McGlinn and Dunne each went off three times. Hippeli went off for good at 67:21, replaced by McGlinn, a forward for a defender.
Walker ran a smaller version of the same pattern, five first-half changes between 30:48 and 44:17, all five undone at 45:00, and 19 substitutions in all from five substitutes. Charlie Wistrom came on at 44:17 and played 43 seconds. Gillahan, Karli Williams, Ella Guyott, Emma Reda, Borer and Emma Donnelly went the full 90.
Bodmer, Joseph, Hailey and Tsokos were the only Scarlet Knights who never came off.
Baran Takes Every Rutgers Shot, and Bodmer Saves Two in 18 Seconds
Nebraska had the first look. Joseph was called for a foul 46 seconds in and Valente at 5:19, and at 6:44 Guyott went bottom center, where Bodmer saved it. Baran answered 56 seconds later, top center at 7:40, and Gillahan saved that one too.
Rutgers was flagged offside at 8:35, the first of three in the half, and won its first corner at 9:27. Thirty-five seconds later Baran went bottom center again and Gillahan made her second save. Nebraska won corners of its own at 10:50 and 16:50, neither of which produced a shot, and Joseph picked up her second foul at 12:44.
The middle of the half belonged to Reda, who was whistled at 14:46, 19:24 and 29:33, three of her match-high four fouls before the half hour. Guyott brought Baran down at 18:38, and after Reda’s second foul, on Dunne, Baran had a shot blocked at 20:02. It was her third shot of the half and Rutgers’ third. Nobody else in scarlet took one before the break.
Carson Bohonek, the sophomore from Bettendorf, Iowa, who scored a brace against Omaha in August, put one off target at 21:03. Nebraska was called for a handball at 24:24, and 42 seconds later Hippeli, who scored against Northwestern on Thursday, came off for Stiles, the earliest of the six first-half changes. Rutgers was caught offside again at 25:53, and Ava Makovicka was whistled for a foul on Bodmer at 27:12.
Baran came off at 30:48 with Dunne, Walker sent Ella Rudney on for Makovicka at the same mark, and the best chances of the half came inside the next 83 seconds. Valente fouled at 31:34 with the free kick going to Kate Eggett, and Bohonek went bottom center at 31:53. Bodmer saved it. Eggett went bottom center 18 seconds later. Bodmer saved that one too.
Two shots, 18 seconds, two saves.
From there both benches emptied. Walker brought on Sadie Sant at 32:56 and Kayma Carpenter at 34:02, the three Rutgers changes at 36:27 crossed with Mia Cairone coming on for Nathalie Lewis, and Rutgers’ third offside came at 37:44. Rutgers was called for a handball at 39:12, Williams had a shot blocked at 39:49, and Cairone was booked for unsporting behavior at 43:45, seven minutes into the only shift she played. Walker’s last change, Wistrom for Bohonek, came 43 seconds from the whistle.
Nebraska outshot Rutgers 5-3 in the first half, put three on target to Rutgers’ two and won two corners to one. Rutgers was flagged offside three times and Nebraska not at all. Nebraska committed five fouls to Rutgers’ four. Cairone took the only card. Bodmer made three saves. Gillahan made two.
Rutgers went the last 25 minutes of the half without a shot.
Five Shots in the Last 10 Minutes, Two Saves in the Last 28 Seconds
Both coaches put their starters back to open the half. Tsokos fouled Makovicka at 49:36 and Eggett fouled Baran at 50:40, and at 51:51 Makovicka went bottom center for Bodmer’s fourth save. Eggett was called for another foul at 54:25 and Dunne for the first of her three at 55:01.
Rutgers’ first shots in 36 minutes came 11 seconds apart, with Baran blocked at 56:30 and Valente off target at 56:41. Then the fouls came back, Hippeli at 58:44 and Dunne again at 60:23. Audrey Cain replaced McGlinn at 61:20, the same moment Rudney replaced Eggett, and Rutgers won its second corner at 61:51.
The second-half waves started at 64:41, Morris, Russomanno and Thornton on for Gil, Baran and Dunne, and the next three minutes were Nebraska’s. Calvert fouled Donnelly at 64:56, Nebraska won corners at 66:01 and 66:14, 13 seconds apart, and Sant put one off target at 66:37. Three more Rutgers changes followed at 67:21, Stiles for Calvert, Phillips for Valente and McGlinn back on for Hippeli, and Cain put Rutgers’ next shot off target at 68:31.
Russomanno was booked for unsporting behavior at 69:44, five minutes and three seconds after coming on, and Walker made three changes on the same mark. Calvert and Valente were back on at 73:31. Tsokos fouled Carpenter at 74:49, and at 76:03 Lewis went bottom center for Bodmer’s fifth and final save. Baran and Dunne came back on at 76:16, and Lewis put one off target at 77:47. Lewis, who scored Nebraska’s first goal of the season three minutes into the opener at Louisville, took two of Nebraska’s last three shots.
Nebraska did not shoot again.
Rutgers took the last five shots of the match.
Reda’s fourth foul, on Baran at 81:41, started the push, and Calvert went off target at 82:06 and Baran at 82:36. Nebraska was flagged offside at 83:26, Thornton came on for McGlinn at 84:13 and Nebraska took its fifth corner at 86:02. Makovicka fouled Stiles at 86:36, Russomanno replaced Dunne on the same mark, and Rutgers won corners at 87:06 and 88:06 with Thornton’s shot blocked in between.
Guyott brought down Calvert at 88:43. At 89:32 Calvert went bottom center and Gillahan saved it, and Thornton went bottom center on the same clock mark and Gillahan saved that too. They were Rutgers’ only shots on target of the second half. Gillahan had not been asked to make a save since 10:02, and she made two in the same second. Unbelievable effort, even if it cost Rutgers a victory.
There were 28 seconds left, and nothing else happened.
Rutgers outshot Nebraska 8-4 in the second half, and each side put two on target. Corners were 3-3. Rutgers committed seven fouls to Nebraska’s five. Nebraska was caught offside once. Russomanno took the only card. Bodmer made two saves. Gillahan made two.
Rutgers is 4-5-4 and 3-4-1 in conference, with 16 goals scored and 17 conceded through 13 matches and a 170-164 edge in shots on the season. Over 90 minutes on Sunday it finished 11-9 in shots, Nebraska led 5-4 on target and 5-4 in corners, and Rutgers committed 11 fouls to 10. Baran led both teams with five shots and put two on target. Bodmer has 63 saves on the season.
There is a version of Sunday worth keeping. Rutgers held a clean sheet against a team that had not lost in three matches, owned the last 15 minutes and took the last five shots. And there is the version that keeps coming up. Four shots on target in 90 minutes, two of them in the final minute, and a goalkeeper who only had to work at the start and at the end.
The next three are on the road. Rutgers goes to Penn State on Saturday, Oct. 17, at Jeffrey Field, against a program in its 20th season under Erica Dambach that has made 32 straight NCAA Tournaments, then to Ohio State on Oct. 22 and Indiana on Oct. 25 before closing the regular season against Maryland at Yurcak on Oct. 30. Nebraska goes home to host Illinois on Oct. 18.
Four Big Ten matches remain, and three of them are away from Yurcak.
Nebraska came to Piscataway without conceding in 270 minutes.
They left with 360, but still without a win over Rutgers.
