PISCATAWAY, N.J. — Rutgers has now played the two highest-ranked teams on their schedule. Both came in unbeaten. Both left with their first loss of the season.
The Scarlet Knights beat No. 2 Indiana 1-0 on Friday night at Yurcak Field, with Francesco Di Ponzio following his own blocked shot in at 72:24 for a goal that survived a VAR review, and Rafael Ponce de Leon needing one save all night. It was the Blackout, played in front of 387 through rain that came and went all evening, and it was Rutgers’
first win over Indiana since the 2022 Big Ten Tournament final, a 3-1 win on this same field.
Indiana arrived 11-0-2 and 4-0-1 in the Big Ten under Todd Yeagley, who has won more Big Ten matches than any coach in league history, tied for first in the table with 13 points and a game in hand on Washington and Michigan State. The Hoosiers had allowed 0.54 goals per match, the fewest in the conference, had not conceded twice in any match all year, and junior goalkeeper Michal Mroz came in with five clean sheets, tied for the Big Ten lead. They beat then-No. 6 Maryland 3-1 on Oct. 2 behind two first-half goals from Charlie Heuer, trailed at halftime for the first time all season against Kentucky four days later and won anyway on three second-half goals in 12 minutes from Oliver Moller-Jensen, then put seven past Division III Hanover on Oct. 9, four of them from Collins Oduro. Moller-Jensen, a senior, came in with 10 goals and that week’s Big Ten Offensive Player of the Week award.
The series had gone one way lately. Indiana had won three straight meetings by a combined 10-1, closing last season’s regular season with a 5-0 win over Rutgers. The one thing the Hoosiers had not solved was the man now in the Rutgers goal. Ponce de Leon, then at Northwestern, made six saves in a shutout of Indiana last season, and Yeagley spent his prematch press conference calling him “a pretty complete keeper.”
Indiana put one shot on goal Friday night. Ponce de Leon saved it.
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: Thomas Angelone
Subs: Matty Lynch, Dan Karsten, Joshua Jerome, Braxton Montgomery, Erick Ruiz, Jeffrey Bryjak, Charlie Kitch
McElderry made one change to the eleven that started the previous three matches, sending Thomas Angelone up top in place of Dan Karsten. The box score filed Rutgers as four defenders, five midfielders and one forward for a fourth straight match, after Columbus and Seattle were both listed six, three and one.
The half-hour change came on schedule. Tonight it was three, all at 30:51, with Matty Lynch on for William Pierce, Karsten for Angelone and Joshua Jerome for Amer Lukovic, on the same stoppage that saw Indiana’s Westin Carnevale booked. Angelone, cautioned at 9:56, lasted 31 minutes. Braxton Montgomery replaced Simon Gorczowski at halftime, and at 60:37 McElderry undid the first-half change in one stroke, sending Gorczowski, Pierce and Lukovic back on for Lynch, Karsten and Jerome. Each of the three substitutes got one shift of almost exactly 30 minutes.
Erick Ruiz replaced Di Ponzio at 73:27, Jeffrey Bryjak came on for Gorczowski at 84:10 and Charlie Kitch for Pierce at 89:51. Six Scarlet Knights went the full 90 with Ponce de Leon, Devon Stopek, Nick Collins, Pius Ssebulime, Zach Mastrodimos and Hector Criado.
VAR Says No Penalty, and the Rain Comes Down
Indiana took the first two shots and neither troubled anyone. Njike put one off target at 7:24, 20 seconds after Mastrodimos fouled Heuer, and Nick McHenry did the same at 10:03 off the free kick that followed Angelone’s foul on Moller-Jensen. Angelone was booked for unsporting behavior at 9:56. The rain showed up around the same time, briefly, and then left.
Rutgers won its first corner at 12:46 and took its first shot at 13:53, Lukovic off target. Stopek put the first attempt on goal at 15:26, toward the top center, and Mroz saved it. Then the match went quiet. Indiana won corners at 18:57 and 21:31, and for 16 minutes and 24 seconds after Stopek’s attempt nobody on either side took a shot.
The 30:51 stoppage brought five substitutions, a yellow card for Carnevale’s foul on Stopek and a Di Ponzio foul on Alex Barger before play had properly restarted. Fifty-nine seconds later Moller-Jensen got a shot away toward the top center of the goal and Ponce de Leon saved it.
It was the only shot Indiana put on target all night.
The most tense moment of the half came three minutes later. Easton Bogard had an attempt blocked at 33:58, Indiana won corners at 34:01 and 34:56, and in between referee Cesar Ibarra went to VAR to check for a Rutgers handball and a potential penalty. The review came back with no penalty, and Indiana had to settle for the second corner. That was about when the rain came back, and this time it stayed and got heavy.
Rutgers finished the half the stronger side in the wet. Mastrodimos had an attempt blocked at 37:58 off a corner won at 37:24, and Di Ponzio took two shots in 10 seconds, the first saved low and central by Mroz at 39:27, the second off target at 39:37. From my seat, Indiana spent long stretches of the half giving the ball away in bad places, at one point with Mroz playing it straight to a Rutgers player, and Rutgers could not make any of it count.
At the half Rutgers had five shots and two on target, and Indiana had four and one. Indiana had four corners to Rutgers’ two, and Rutgers had committed eight fouls to Indiana’s five.
Ponce de Leon had made one save.
He would not have to make another.
Di Ponzio Scores on His Own Rebound to Seal the Upset
Rutgers opened the second half the way it closed the first. Montgomery fouled Njike 37 seconds in and Njike fouled Di Ponzio at 46:28, and at 48:36 Di Ponzio had a shot blocked. Four seconds later Lynch put one low and central, and Mroz saved it.
Lynch tried again at 52:58 and Karsten at 53:11, both toward the bottom center, both saved. That was three saves for Mroz in four and a half minutes, and Indiana’s discipline was going with its control of the match. Bogard, Alex Matthews and Njike committed fouls at 51:08, 51:48 and 53:59, and Njike was booked on the last of them, again for unsporting behavior.
Indiana’s first shot of the half came from Bogard at 55:35 and went off target. Bogard, the Hoosiers’ second-leading scorer with five goals, was booked at 61:29 for a foul on Stopek, Indiana’s third yellow card of the night and its third for unsporting behavior. He finished with six fouls, more than anyone on the field, and no shots on target.
Moller-Jensen came back at 63:39, and for about 10 minutes the match tilted toward Indiana. The Hoosiers won corners at 64:57, 68:50 and 69:28, Nolan Kinsella shot off target at 65:30 and Moller-Jensen did the same at 68:22. None of it reached Ponce de Leon.
Rutgers was caught offside at 71:24, and around the same time Lukovic dragged a shot just wide of the right post, to the dismay of the crowd. Lukovic fouled Josh Maher at 72:08. At 72:23 Di Ponzio had a shot blocked, and one second later he put the rebound into the bottom right corner with his right foot.
The goal went to VAR and stood. Yeagley sent Oduro back on at the same clock, and 63 seconds after scoring, Di Ponzio came off with an injury, with Ruiz taking his place.
Rutgers had 17 minutes and 36 seconds to hold it.
Indiana pushed, and the rain picked back up with it. Corners at 75:16 and 75:51 came to nothing, Lukovic had an attempt blocked at 76:47, and Painter, 3:32 after coming on, shot off target at 80:45. In between, Rutgers won a corner at 78:37 and was caught offside again at 79:54.
Rutgers spent the last five minutes looking for a second rather than sitting on the first. Pierce forced Mroz into saves at 86:09 and 87:14, both low and central, and Rutgers won a corner at 87:20. Matthews and Bogard fouled at 88:03 and 89:24, Lukovic fouled Matthews at 89:50, Kitch went on at 89:51, and Moller-Jensen’s last attempt at 89:57 went off target.
That was the match, and there was Pandemonium in Piscataway, this time for a different kind of football.
In the second half Rutgers took nine shots, put six on target and scored once. Indiana took five, put none on target, won five corners and committed 12 fouls. Mroz finished with seven saves and was beaten once.
Rutgers goes to Penn State on Tuesday, Oct. 20, at 7 p.m., hosts Michigan at Yurcak Field on Oct. 23 and closes the regular season at Michigan State on Oct. 30, with the Big Ten Tournament to follow in November. Indiana goes to Ohio State on Tuesday, where Rutgers handed the Buckeyes their first loss a month ago. Three regular-season matches remain, all in the Big Ten, and at 4-3 in the league Rutgers now has real reason to look up the table rather than down it.
The season numbers now read 6-6-1 overall and 4-3 in the Big Ten, with 151 shots and 19 goals for a conversion rate of 12.6 percent, 62 shots on goal, 75 corners, 168 fouls, 24 yellow cards and no red cards. Rutgers is 4-4 against ranked opponents and has kept four clean sheets. Ponce de Leon has made 40 saves and conceded 14 goals across 13 matches. One of those saves came Friday, and none of those goals.
Ohio State needed 10 shots to score once against Rutgers. Indiana took nine and put one on target.
The Ranked Reapers have taken another victim to the boneyard.
