WASHINGTON, D.C. — After an offseason full of new faces, Jim McElderry took his Scarlet Knights into the nation’s capital to begin a new era of Rutgers men’s soccer, and the eighth-year head coach got an early read on how much work is left. Rutgers drew at American 0-0 this afternoon at Reeves Field, despite a late goal by American called off by VAR in the 70th minute.
The Scarlet Knights arrived in D.C. carrying the residue of a season that ended one place short. Rutgers climbed as high as No. 13
in the national rankings last fall before an 0-2-1 finish, capped by a 5-0 loss at Indiana, left it at 8-6-3 overall and 3-5-2 in Big Ten play. This was one spot outside the four-team Big Ten Tournament field. Twenty-one of the program’s 28 goals came from first-year Scarlet Knights, and McElderry ran that formula back this summer with 11 more newcomers.
American was not a soft landing. The Eagles won the 2025 Patriot League regular-season title, their first since 2016, earned the No. 1 seed in the conference tournament for the first time in nine years and went 6-0-1 at Reeves Field, where they did not lose a regular-season match all year. Zach Samol was named Patriot League Coach of the Year in his sixth season, midfielder Troy Elgersma took Midfielder of the Year and goalkeeper Matthew Tibbetts won Goalkeeper of the Year.
Lineup
GK: Rafa Ponce de Leon
D: Simon Gorczowski, Devon Stopek, Nick Collins, Jeffrey Bryjak, Braxton Montgomery
M: Pius Ssebulime, Zach Mastrodimos, Amer Lukovic
F: Andrew Kitch, Dan Karsten
Subs: Francesco Di Ponzio, Thomas Angelone, William Pierce, Erick Ruiz, Noah Hannawald, Joshua Jerome, Hector Criado, Dylan Carlson, Logan Brown
McElderry opened the season with three of the program’s 11 newcomers in the starting XI, and the choices said as much about who he trusts as who he recruited. Graduate transfer Rafa Ponce de Leon, the Pennington native who came home from Northwestern after finishing fifth all-time there in clean sheets, got the nod in goal. In front of him was a back five made up entirely of returners, anchored by senior Nick Collins, the Hermann Trophy watch-list defender who started all 17 matches and logged 1,499 minutes a year ago.
The other two newcomers who did break in were both midfielders. Pius Ssebulime, the Uganda youth international who started all 18 matches at Gardner-Webb as a true freshman, and Zach Mastrodimos, the Hoboken native who arrives from UCLA’s Big Ten title team, lined up alongside returning transfer Amer Lukovic in a three-man middle. Andrew Kitch and Dan Karsten started up top as well
The nine-man bench gave McElderry flexibility to rotate early in a schedule that puts three matches in nine days. All six of the first-half changes came at once at the end of the 28th minute. He kept churning after the break, running seven more substitutions across the second half and bringing six of those first-half withdrawals back onto the field, with freshman center back Hector Criado and midfielder Dylan Carlson making their Rutgers debuts.
Ponce de Leon Holds the Line in the First Half
American came out of the gate with the ball. The Eagles took four corner kicks between the sixth and ninth minutes and got the first real look of the match in the eighth, when Chris Sullivan struck low to the left and Rafa Ponce de Leon pushed it away. It was the graduate transfer’s first competitive touch in scarlet, and the opening quarter-hour gave him plenty of work at the edges, as Rutgers spent it defending restarts and chasing second balls, managing four throw-ins in the first four minutes and little else.
The one sustained spell by Rutgers arrived just past the midpoint of the half. A corner in the 26th minute was followed by a foul on Sebastian Garces, and from the resulting free kick, Nick Collins got his head to it and forced Evan Tubbs into a save high to his right. This was the only shot on target Rutgers managed in 45 minutes, and it came from a center back. Garces was booked seconds later for the challenge, the only card of the half. Rutgers won another free kick and another corner in the next 90 seconds without turning either into a chance.
Then both coaches wiped the board, as McElderry made all six of his changes at once in the 28th minute, pulling Simon Gorczowski, Braxton Montgomery, Amer Lukovic, Zach Mastrodimos, Andrew Kitch and Dan Karsten for Joshua Jerome, Francesco Di Ponzio, Thomas Angelone, Noah Hannawald, Erick Ruiz and William Pierce. Zach Samol answered with six of his own four minutes later. The half never fully recovered its rhythm after that, as Oliver Snowdon had tested Ponce de Leon from distance in the 22nd minute, and the only other attempt came from Jerome in the 38th, dragged wide right..
The numbers at the interval were nearly identical everywhere it mattered and lopsided where it didn’t. Shots were even at 2-2, American led shots on goal 2-1 and corners 4-2, and Rutgers committed six fouls to two by American. Ponce de Leon finished the half with two saves, showing a strong start to his Rutgers career.
Eleven Shots, Yet None Fall
Once halftime had ended, Rutgers came out with the ball and did not give much of it back. The Scarlet Knights put up 11 shots in the second half to American’s three and took five corners to the Eagles’ one, but almost none of it found the frame, as of those 11 attempts, one was on target. Devon Stopek, William Pierce, Simon Gorczowski and Andrew Kitch all had efforts blocked. Francesco Di Ponzio and Braxton Montgomery missed. Amer Lukovic, on for Joshua Jerome in the 67th minute, took four shots in 51 minutes and got exactly one of them on goal, a low effort to the center that Evan Tubbs held in the 74th.
The match turned on a goal that did not count. In the 70th minute, Moad Ezzahir, on for Reyes Parra 90 seconds earlier, put the ball past Rafa Ponce de Leon, and American had it on the board. The review took it off. When play resumed, Rutgers had a scoreless match again instead of a deficit, and the sequence bled into a strange stretch as Logan Brown came on in goal for Ponce de Leon for barely a minute before Ponce de Leon returned, and Montgomery, reintroduced in the 72nd minute after sitting since the 28th, was booked 25 seconds later for the only Rutgers card of the second half.
Ponce de Leon had already been the reason the game was still level. Chris Sullivan tested him low to the left in the 69th minute, the same corner he had gone to in the opening ten, and the graduate transfer turned it away again. He finished with three saves across 89 minutes, with a fourth credited to the team when Rutgers cleared a Parra effort off the line in the 56th. The final numbers read 13 shots to five for Rutgers and seven corners to five, and none of it produced a goal.
Rutgers will not have as much time to make adjustments, as the D.C. trip only gets harder from here. The Scarlet Knights stay in the capital for No. 5 Georgetown on Sunday afternoon before returning to the banks for a five-game homestand that opens against Sacred Heart on Friday, Aug. 28, and runs through Seton Hall, UC Santa Barbara, a Big Ten opener with defending conference tournament champion UCLA on Sept. 11 and Princeton.
Ninety minutes is a small sample for a new roster this new, but it shows that adjustments may need to be made quickly before reality bites at the hands of the Georgetown Hoyas.
