Rutgers took nine shots at No. 2 Maryland on Friday and lost 3-0. It took 30 against La Salle on Sunday and won 5-0. Two shutouts in three days, one in each direction, and in the second one the other team took a single shot in 60 minutes. The Scarlet Knights are 5-5 and 0-1 in the Big Ten, and all five losses have come against ranked opponents. Rutgers has still not lost to a team without a number in front of it. Penn State visits the Bauer Complex on Friday for the Big Ten home opener.
Maryland Scored With 24 Seconds Left in the Third
No. 2 Maryland
came in 8-0, outscoring opponents 27-4. Maci Bradford inserted a penalty corner at 1:16 and Feliz Kuhne put it wide. Bradford inserted again at 10:31 and Francisca Eschoyez went wide a second later. At 12:56 Jordyn Hollamon hit the post four seconds after a third Bradford insert, and Samantha Arnold had already made a defensive save on a Babs Van Hest shot at 9:30. Maryland outshot Rutgers 5-1 in the quarter.
Rutgers had their best stretch at the start of the second. Anna Cogdell forced a Klebasko save at 15:40 and Frederique Vernooij, who inserted Rutgers’ first corner at 15:53, forced another at 16:29. Maryland sent on Djuna Eikelboom and Aida Ierubino at 18:32, and it took them less than three minutes. At 21:25 Ierubino picked off a Rutgers pass and carried it into the circle. Her shot was blocked, and Eikelboom put the rebound past Emily Nicholls. Talia Schenck took a green card at 23:31, and Rutgers went to halftime down one.
Olivia Beattie was shown a yellow card at 35:39, five minutes a player down against the second-best team in the country. Maryland had a corner four seconds into it and another 11 seconds after that, both inserted by Eikelboom. Nicholls saved Josie Hollamon at 35:48, Van Hest was blocked at 36:03, and Rutgers killed the rest of the suspension without allowing another shot on goal.
Rutgers had survived the worst five minutes of the game.
They did not survive the last 24 seconds of the quarter. By Rutgers’ own account a redirect on a cross from the wing did not connect in the final minute, and Maryland went the other way and earned a corner. Bradford inserted at 44:29, and Eschoyez, who came in with a team-high six goals, scored at 44:36 from Bradford and Van Hest, seven seconds after the insert.
Maryland’s third took longer and came from the same place. Bradford inserted at 53:25. Brinkley Eyre was blocked at 53:26, Nicholls saved Eikelboom at 53:28, Eschoyez was blocked at 53:33, and Eikelboom tapped in the fourth attempt at 53:37 for her second of the game. Four Maryland attempts in 12 seconds, off one corner.
Rutgers took four shots in the fourth, their most of any quarter. Klebasko saved Olivia Fraticelli at 50:47 and again at 59:20, and Beattie’s shot off a Loycke corner was blocked with 31 seconds left. Klebasko finished with six saves, Maryland won the shot count 19-9 and the corner count 8-2, and shots on goal finished 7-6. The Terps are 9-0, have won four straight in the series and lead it 39-5-1. Rutgers has still never won at Maryland, where Meredith Civico won a national championship as a player in 2005.
La Salle Took One Shot
La Salle came to the Bauer Complex for Youth Field Hockey Day with Abby Boggs averaging 9.86 saves a game. She made 19 on Sunday.
Seven of them came before Rutgers scored. Martha Goodridge forced the first at 0:36, and Loycke was saved at 4:52 and 8:20. Vernooij inserted a corner at 11:28 and Goodridge forced a save at 12:16. Madelyn Kidd inserted at 13:16 and Lauren Iaccio went wide at 13:25. Beattie was saved at 14:40, and Vernooij inserted at 14:59 and Iaccio was saved on the horn. Eight shots, three corners, nothing on the board after a quarter.
It took 17 minutes and 32 seconds for one to go in.
Schenck scored it, unassisted, at 17:32. Kidd inserted at 22:00 and Cogdell was saved at 22:04. Fraticelli went wide at 22:54 and scored unassisted 29 seconds later at 23:23. Iaccio was saved again off a Kidd corner at 29:18, and Rutgers led 2-0 at halftime on 15 shots.
La Salle’s only shot of the game came at 32:23, when Gianna Lambert got one away and Nicholls saved it. It was the only save Nicholls had to make. Rutgers had four saved in the next six minutes, from Schenck, Loycke, Vernooij and Iaccio, the last off a Loycke corner at 37:52. Julia Vinas Nieto went wide at 41:33, and at 42:18 Kidd set up Goodridge for her third of the season.
Schenck scored her second at 48:29. Ella Gandy and Goodridge had shots saved off a Loycke corner at 50:34 and 50:39. At 56:06 Schenck set up Kidd for Kidd’s first goal of the season.
Schenck, the Princeton transfer, finished with five shots, all five on goal, two goals and an assist. Goodridge put all four of hers on target. Rutgers outshot La Salle 30-1, put 24 on goal to one and took all eight corners of the game, and 20 Scarlet Knights played. Rutgers is 18-2-1 all-time against La Salle, and the Explorers fell to 3-6.
Ten Corners, No Goals
Rutgers earned two penalty corners at Maryland and eight against La Salle. Ten corners across the weekend produced no goals. Maryland earned eight on Friday and scored twice from them.
The other end is the thread this I have been pulling for two weeks. Three UConn goals arrived within 17 seconds of an insert. All three goals Rutgers gave up at UAlbany and Colgate arrived within eight. Eikelboom’s first on Friday was the first goal Rutgers had conceded from open play since Princeton’s second on Sept. 11. Then Eschoyez scored seven seconds after an insert and Eikelboom scored 12 seconds after one. Eight of the last nine goals Rutgers has conceded have come off corners.
Sunday’s five goals all came from open play, none of them within a minute of a Rutgers insert. The corners still produced shots, and half of them went to one player. Lauren Iaccio took four against La Salle and every one came off a corner, nine, zero, zero and 14 seconds after the insert. Boggs saved three and the fourth went wide.
Iaccio was the Big Ten Freshman of the Week after scoring the winner at Colgate, and she has started every game this season. Rutgers went to her on half its corners Sunday, and she put three of four on target. Volume is there at both ends. Only one end is converting.
The Card Count Took Sunday Off
Rutgers came into the weekend with 14 cards in eight games.
It took two on Friday. Talia Schenck, green card, 23:31. Olivia Beattie, yellow card, 35:39, a five-minute suspension. Maryland took two corners in the first 15 seconds of it and put one shot on goal in the full five minutes, and Rutgers came out the other side still down one. Kendall Gilmore took Maryland’s only card, a green at 57:53.
That is 16 cards in 10 games. Schenck has now been carded at UAlbany and at Maryland, and Beattie has taken yellows in consecutive games, at 57:54 at Colgate and at 35:39 in College Park.
Then Sunday produced none.
It was Rutgers’ first card-free game since Virginia. That one ended in a 2-1 loss and this one in a 5-0 win, so neither settles anything, and 16 in 10 is the number Rutgers carries into the rest of the Big Ten schedule.
Penn State visits the Bauer Complex on Friday at 3 p.m. for the Blackout Game and the Big Ten home opener, and American comes in Sunday at noon. Civico has 149 wins as Rutgers head coach and can reach 150 on Friday. Fraticelli has 19 career goals and needs one to become the 16th Scarlet Knight to reach 20.
Rutgers found out on Friday that they can hold the second-best team in the country to one goal for 44 minutes and 36 seconds.
Penn State asks for all 60, at home, in black.
