PISCATAWAY, N.J. — UCLA went 35 minutes and 50 seconds of the second half on Thursday night without attempting a shot. They needed exactly one more to score the winner.
Rutgers took 15 and put one on target.
Cate Sarinopoulos, on the field for seven minutes, finished into the bottom left corner off her left foot at 84:22, and No. 12 UCLA beat the Scarlet Knights 1-0 at Yurcak Field on the Blackout, live on the Big Ten Network. It was Rutgers’ third straight loss, all three by a single goal, and the fifth
time in five meetings that UCLA has beaten Rutgers without giving up a goal.
Rutgers came in 2-3-3 and 1-2-0 in the Big Ten, four days removed from a 2-1 loss to Purdue in which they led at halftime and then put none of its nine second-half shots on target. That drought outlived the Purdue match by most of another one. From Reilly McGlinn’s saved attempt at 45:36 on Sunday to Jayme Malanda’s at 74:27 on Thursday, Rutgers took 20 consecutive shots across 118 minutes and 51 seconds of soccer without forcing a save.
The shot count has read better than the results for most of this season, and Thursday was the purest version of it yet. Rutgers won the shots, won the corners 4-3 and gave Olivia Bodmer, who came in leading the Big Ten with 42 saves, two to make.
UCLA arrived 5-3-1 and 2-1-0 in the Big Ten after the biggest jump in the coaches poll last week, nine spots from No. 21 to No. 12, on the strength of a 1-0 win over then-No. 5 Ohio State on Sept. 17. Leena Powell scored that one in the 25th minute from just outside the box off a Kara Croone setup, and Daphne Nakfoor made five saves, including a leaping tip over the bar in the 88th minute, to hand the Buckeyes their first loss of the year. Ohio State was the fourth top-five opponent UCLA had played in nine matches.
This is the first season under Gof Boyoko, promoted from associate head coach in December after four years on the staff, the first of which ended with UCLA’s 2022 national championship, the program’s second after 2013. The Bruins won the Big Ten Tournament in their first year in the league, beating Rutgers 5-0 in the 2024 final, and won 1-0 in Los Angeles last September while holding the Scarlet Knights to three shots. The all-time series stood at 4-0, and 9-0 on aggregate.
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, Bea Tinoco, Olivia Russomanno, Audrey Cain, Lily Ann Phillips, Jayme Malanda, Amanda Thornton, Madelyn O’Neill, Riley Morris, Emma Johns
Mike O’Neill made one change to the eleven that started against Purdue, with Gabriela Gil in for Malanda. Gil lasted until 73:08, when she went down aggravating an ankle injury suffered in a previous game, and Malanda replaced her a second later.
The substitutions ran to 30, up from 25 against Purdue, with 10 substitutes used and 20 players on the field. The first half was back to nine changes, in two waves this time, four at 26:16 and five at 40:39. The second wave lasted four minutes and 21 seconds. Bea Tinoco, Lily Ann Phillips, Riley Morris, Madelyn O’Neill and Malanda all came on at 40:39 and all five were gone at the whistle, part of eight changes at 45:00 that restored every starter but one. Sophia Stiles, on for Hippeli at 26:16, stayed on through the interval and played until 69:34.
The second half brought 13 more, including a block of five at 77:40 with the score still 0-0 that sent Calvert, McGlinn, Baran, Dunne and Valente back on together. When Sarinopoulos scored six minutes and 42 seconds later, the Rutgers team on the field was the same eleven that had started against Purdue on Sunday.
Lindsey Hailey was the only outfield player who never came off.
UCLA Wins the First Half on Target, Despite Not Shooting for Nearly 40 Minutes
Rutgers took the first shot of the night and most of the ones after it. The Scarlet Knights won a corner at 0:29, and Lilia Calvert put the opening attempt off target at 0:59. Julia Joseph gave away a free kick at 3:27 and Gil another at 5:04, and nothing else of note happened until 10:30, when Abby Gemma was shown a yellow card for unsporting behavior, Rutgers won a corner and Boyoko replaced Gemma with Asa Yamazaki, all at the same mark on the clock.
This game was a homecoming for Abby Gemma, as she is a native of Flemington, N.J., a U.S. Under-20 defender who came to UCLA from Florida by way of Notre Dame. Her trip home lasted 11 minutes.
Rutgers kept shooting and kept missing. Marian Dunne went off target at 11:31 and McGlinn at 17:40. UCLA won a corner at 14:34, Calvert fouled Samantha Sanchez at 15:28 and the Bruins were caught offside at 18:43. Paloma Daubert gave away free kicks at 19:57 and 21:18, and Tommi Valente had a shot blocked at 22:15.
O’Neill made his first move at 26:16, four at once, with Amanda Thornton on for McGlinn, Emma Johns for Baran, Olivia Russomanno for Dunne and Stiles for Hippeli. Boyoko answered in pairs, Thea Perry and Olivia Woodson on for Croone and Payten Cooper at 27:25, then Sarinopoulos and Ava Priest on for Grace Shank and Molly Hale at 29:38. Perry was whistled at 32:34 and again at 38:00, UCLA won a corner at 34:08 and Gil fouled Priest at 38:40.
UCLA did not attempt a shot until 39:26, when Woodson had one blocked.
Rutgers answered with two inside a minute, Calvert blocked at 40:05 and off target at 40:14, and at 40:39 Mike O’Neill sent on the second wave, taking Joseph, Calvert, Gil, Valente and Tsokos off together. Tinoco fouled Powell at 42:07, UCLA won a corner at 42:47, and at 43:13 Priest put the Bruins’ second shot of the night on target, top left, where Bodmer saved it.
Rutgers outshot UCLA 6-2 in the first half and put none of the six on target. UCLA put one of its two on frame. The Bruins won the corners 3-2. Rutgers committed five fouls to UCLA’s four, and UCLA took the half’s only card and its only offside call. Bodmer made one save. Nakfoor made none.
Six shots, and Nakfoor had not been asked to make a save.
Rutgers Concedes the Winner With Less Than 10 to Play
Boyoko changed three at the interval, Hale on for Sarinopoulos, Shank for Perry and Cooper for Priest, and UCLA opened the half with its best spell of the night. Woodson went off target at 45:34. Tsokos fouled Cooper at 47:40, and at 48:32 Powell, the Ohio State match-winner, forced Bodmer into a save at bottom center.
Cooper was booked for unsporting behavior at 49:32, UCLA’s second yellow of the night, and Rutgers got a free kick out of it. Valente’s shot was blocked, and the corner that followed came to nothing. Powell fouled Calvert at 52:30. Then the match went nearly nine minutes on throw-ins and goal kicks.
Rutgers woke up.
Russomanno came on for Baran at 61:11 and Laila Edris for Sanchez, Calvert fouled at 61:24, and Rutgers put together its best pressure of the night with four shots in 3:02. Calvert was blocked at 62:21 and blocked again five seconds later. Tsokos went off target at 62:53. Calvert went off target at 65:23.
O’Neill sent on Thornton for McGlinn and Johns for Dunne at 65:42, then Cain for Calvert and Hippeli for Stiles at 69:34. Anna Wilson fouled Tsokos at 67:29, Shank fouled Valente at 70:13, and Joseph missed at 70:42. At 73:08 Gil went down. Malanda came on for her at 73:09, with Morris on for Valente, and Rutgers took a corner. At 74:27 Malanda’s shot went bottom right and Nakfoor saved it.
It was Rutgers’ 13th shot of the night, and the first one Nakfoor had to deal with, was a looming score on the horizon?
Russomanno fouled Edris at 75:28. Boyoko made three changes at 77:15, putting Priest, Sarinopoulos and Perry back on, and O’Neill answered 25 seconds later with five of his own. Priest fouled Dunne at 78:34, Rutgers was flagged offside at 79:12 and McGlinn fouled Wilson at 79:47. UCLA took a goal kick at 82:43.
At 84:22, Sarinopoulos put it into the bottom left corner off her left foot, unassisted. It was UCLA’s first shot since Powell’s at 48:32.
Rutgers had seven minutes and change to find an equalizer and never found a shot on target, it wasn’t for a lack of trying.
Thornton came on for Baran at 86:14, Boyoko sent on Shank and Hale for Powell and Oruha Hayashi, and Valente went off target at 88:00. Sarinopoulos fouled Hippeli at 88:22 to give Rutgers one more free kick, and Calvert’s seventh shot of the night was blocked at 89:21, the last act of the match, and a solemn end to what was meant to be an exciting Blackout game.
Rutgers took nine shots in the second half and put one on target. UCLA took three, put two on target and scored once. Rutgers won both of the half’s corners. Bodmer made one save. Nakfoor made one.
There is a version of Thursday the Scarlet Knights can take something from. They outshot a top-15 team 15-5, won the corners, held the Bruins without a shot for more than half an hour and did not trail until the 85th minute against a side that had just beaten the fifth-ranked team in the country.
And there is the version on the scoreboard. Fifteen shots. One on target. Calvert took seven of them herself, four blocked and three wide, and none reached Nakfoor, who kept her third clean sheet of the season with one save. The team applied heavy pressure on the defense, yet had nothing to show for it when the game had concluded. For Rutgers to win a game, it seems like they need everything to be perfect, and that’s only happened against Oregon and Princeton thus far.
Rutgers is now 2-4-3 overall and 1-3-0 in the Big Ten, with three straight one-goal losses since the win at Oregon and one goal in its last 180 minutes. UCLA moves to 6-3-1 and 3-1-0 and goes on to Maryland on Sunday. Bodmer has 44 saves on the season.
The Scarlet Knights stay home for No. 14 Wisconsin on Sunday at 1 p.m. at Yurcak, then travel to Iowa on Oct. 4. Wisconsin came east 6-1-2 overall and 2-0-1 in the Big Ten, without a conference loss.
Rutgers has now played UCLA five times and has never scored against the Bruins.
On Thursday they took 15 shots. UCLA took five, and needed one.
