PISCATAWAY, N.J. — Remember the name Lilia Calvert, she’s made her arrival, and she’s not going anywhere.
Rutgers beat Princeton 4-2 on Sunday at Yurcak Field, and the freshman who gave away the penalty that let the Tigers back into the match in the first half scored twice in four minutes to end it in the second. Both were the first goals of her college career. Both came on the only two shots she took all night. In between, she was pulled off the field twice.
Rutgers arrived at 0-1-3, four matches
into a season that has produced a shot profile better than its record and nothing in the win column to show for either. The Scarlet Knights had led Providence by two with half an hour left eight days earlier and gave the lead back inside 69 seconds. Before that came two scoreless road draws and an opening loss at Tennessee. This was the second home match Rutgers has actually played this fall, with the Boston College opener still unscheduled after the weather took it.
Princeton came in at 2-3-0 and with considerably more to lose. The Tigers were picked first in the Ivy League preseason poll after winning a second straight Ivy title in 2025, opened the season 3-0 over Loyola (Md.), and were playing their second match in four days following a trip to Columbus to face No. 8 Ohio State. Sean Driscoll, in his 12th season, had platooned Cecilia Cerone and Sydney Romano in goal through the nonconference schedule and gotten two shutouts out of the arrangement. Cerone played all 90 on Sunday and conceded four.
Lineup
GK: Olivia Bodmer
D: Julia Joseph, Jayme Malanda, Morgan Hippeli, Lindsey Hailey
M: Lilia Calvert, Gabriela Gil, Tommi Valente
F: Reilly McGlinn, Ashley Baran, Marian Dunne
Subs: Sophia Stiles, Bea Tinoco, Olivia Russomanno, Audrey Cain, Lily Ann Phillips, Amanda Thornton, Madelyn O’Neill, Riley Morris, Emma Johns, Dina Bojkovic
Mike O’Neill made three changes to the XI that started against Providence, and all three reshaped the front of it. Lily Ann Phillips and Amanda Thornton dropped to the bench, Tommi Valente and Marian Dunne came in, and Calvert moved out of the forward line into a midfield three with Gil and Valente. The back four held for a second straight match, Joseph, Malanda, Hippeli, Hailey, with Bodmer behind them for the full 90. Calvert is a listed forward on the official roster and was logged as a midfielder in the box score, and she played it that way, arriving into the box late on both goals rather than starting inside it.
Patricia Tsokos, who started each of the first three matches at left back, did not appear for a second consecutive game due to injury. Dina Bojkovic, who was not among the nine substitutes against Providence, was on the bench Sunday and played 17 minutes.
O’Neill had used exactly nine substitutes in each of the first four matches. On Sunday he used ten, and he used them in waves. Nine changes came before halftime, with every outfield starter except Hailey spending time on the bench in the opening 45. Then, for the second straight match, he sent the starters back out after the break, ten of the eleven restarted, Bea Tinoco taking Gil’s place, and Gil did not return. A second wave in the 61st minute pulled Calvert, McGlinn, Baran, and Dunne off together. A third put all four back on at once. Twenty-one Rutgers players saw the field.
The Third Minute, Again
Rutgers had a penalty inside two minutes. Dylan Jovanovic was penalized in the opening seconds at one end and Mariana Gomez in her own box at 1:23 at the other, and at 2:33, Gil stepped up with a chance to open the account before Princeton had properly settled. Cerone saved it.
It would be the only save she made all night.
Four seconds later, by the official play-by-play, Baran had the rebound in the net with Gil credited for the assist. That is the second time in eight days Gil has set up Baran inside the opening three minutes at Yurcak. She found her at 1:43 against Providence. Those are Baran’s only two goals of the season, and Gil has assisted both of them.
It was also the last comfortable stretch Rutgers had for 40 minutes. Kayla Wong went at Bodmer at 4:43 and again at 5:22, the second one struck toward the top right corner and pushed away, and the corner that followed at 5:33 set the pattern for the next quarter of an hour. Rutgers gave the ball up and then fouled to get it back with Baran at 4:56, Jayme Malanda at 6:10, Reilly McGlinn at 8:35, Calvert at 11:59. Four fouls inside the first twelve minutes, from four different players, and none of them in areas Rutgers wanted to be defending.
Princeton won four corners in under four minutes between 13:25 and 17:12 and did not need to change anything about how it was playing. Esmé Rudell shot at 16:50 and then forced Bodmer into a save low and central at 17:27. Isabella Garces had a look at 20:10. Then came the most chaotic passage of the half with two more corners and attempts from Jovanovic and Zoe Markesini all logged at 20:20, the last of them saved. All three of Bodmer’s saves came inside the first 21 minutes. Rutgers’ reply was McGlinn dragging one wide of the left post at 23:12. It was the only shot Rutgers took from open play in the entire half.
Then the rotation started, and the equalizer arrived in the middle of it. Gil came off at 24:18 after 25 minutes, Riley Morris on in her place. Calvert, already carrying a foul from the 12th minute, was whistled again a minute later, this time inside the box. Wong buried the penalty at 25:00, and Rutgers pulled Calvert and Baran together seconds after the restart, Olivia Russomanno and Thornton coming on in their places. The bench did not stop emptying after that. Sophia Stiles came on for Hippeli at 27:55. Three more Rutgers changes followed at 31:23 and two more at 37:07. Driscoll matched the churn, sending on three at 27:55 and three more across the next thirteen minutes, including Nina Cantor for Garces. By the interval the two benches had combined for 15 substitutions.
Gomez was booked in the 43rd. Rutgers had been flagged offside once, at 26:52, had won two corners to Princeton’s eight, and had put two shots on target all half, a penalty Cerone saved and a rebound she did not. Princeton had eight attempts to Rutgers’ three. It was 1-1 at the break and the Tigers had earned it.
Four Goals in Sixteen Minutes
Whatever was said at halftime, Princeton did not win another corner all night. Rutgers came back out with ten of its eleven starters, Tinoco in for Gil, and the opening twelve minutes produced almost nothing from either side. Alexandra Barry put the Tigers’ first attempt of the half wide left at 56:53. That was the extent of it.
The match woke up at the hour. Valente shot at 60:12 and Hippeli sent one over the top right corner eight seconds later, and O’Neill responded with his second wave at 60:50, pulling Calvert, McGlinn, Baran, and Dunne off together. Then the discipline went. Rudell, who had already fouled at 57:21 and 58:39, was booked at 62:43. Morris was booked twelve seconds later. Driscoll answered with four changes between 66:11 and 69:11, Stella Monberg, Cantor, Anna Chau, and Aubrey Crisostomo all on. Two of those four would combine for Princeton’s second goal.
Rutgers changed twice at 69:36, Audrey Cain for Morris and Stiles for Hippeli. Eighty-three seconds later, and 35 seconds after a corner, Stiles, the sophomore defender out of Jesuit High School in Portland, Ore., had her first goal of the season, set up by Phillips off the bench. Rutgers led 2-1 with 19 minutes to play.
It lasted six of them. Cantor equalized at 77:04, assisted by Crisostomo. By my estimate from the sideline she struck it from roughly 10 yards beyond the penalty area, and it was the best goal anyone scored on Sunday by a wide margin. Monberg was booked seconds later, the fourth caution in a match that produced 25 fouls, 16 of them by the Tigers. O’Neill’s answer was immediate and blunt. Logged at the same minute as Cantor’s goal, Baran, Calvert, McGlinn, and Dunne went back on together, the entire starting front line sent out to win it.
Rutgers won a corner at 77:31 and Hailey put the chance that came from it over the bar. Dunne dragged one wide to the right at 79:57. Thornton came on for McGlinn at 83:05, and fifteen seconds later Calvert took the first shot of her night. Dunne, her fellow freshman and a former Jesuit teammate of Stiles, played her in, and Calvert buried it.
Yurcak came apart. There were 403 people in the building and it did not sound like 403.
Recupero shot wide at 85:37 with what turned out to be Princeton’s last attempt of the night. Then, at 87:36, Calvert simply outran the Princeton back line, Malanda and Thornton credited on a ball played in behind it, and finished for a second time.
Four minutes and 16 seconds. The Banks has a new star.
Calvert finished with two shots, two on target, two goals, and 53 minutes across three separate stints, which is to say she was off the field for more than 40 percent of a match she decided. Rutgers put five shots on target all night. Cerone saved the penalty. The other four went in.
The nonconference schedule is finished at 1-1-3. Four goals is the most Rutgers has scored in a match this season, and three of them came after the 70th minute, a stretch of the game this team could not survive eight days ago, when it held a two-goal lead with half an hour left and did not keep it.
Big Ten play opens Thursday, and it opens hard. Rutgers flies to Eugene for Oregon on Sept. 10, then stays in the Pacific Northwest for defending Big Ten champion Washington on Sept. 13, before coming home for Purdue on Sept. 20. A side that has now won once in five draws its two most difficult road environments of the year back to back, in that order, roughly 2,400 miles from Yurcak.
A week ago the question was whether this team could hold a lead. On Sunday it lost one twice and won anyway. That answer came loud and proud, and her name was Lilia Calvert.
