 "Photo: Andrew Howard / Staff Photographer")
The Rutgers men's lacrosse team knew it would have to play solid offense to overcome Penn State's nationally-renowned goalie, Drew Adams. What the Scarlet Knights didn't foresee was that sophomore midfielder Hunter Burnard would be the one to solidify Rutgers as he was able to lead the Knights to an 8-4 win over their Eastern College Athletic Conference rival.
Burnard recorded a season-high four points, which included two assists and two scores that matched his season total for goals.
"I've been expecting this kind of game out of Hunter all year," head coach Jim Stagnitta said. "He's a guy who I've been particularly hard on this year because he has tremendous talent and ability, and I don't think he was being as aggressive as he's capable of. But the last three weeks, he's really started to realize his potential."
Though Adams was able to play a solid game that included 11 saves, his skills were upstaged by the play of RU goalie Billy Olin, who recorded 12 saves, all of which seemed to come when the Knights needed them the most.
"This was Olin's most consistent outing of the year," Stagnitta said. "From the beginning, he was making key saves. He made every save that you're supposed to make, and he even made a couple of saves that you're not supposed to make."
With a 4-2 lead at halftime, RU continued to put pressure on the Nittany Lions in the third quarter as sophomore attack Tad Stanwick would score the quarter's first goal off of an assist by Burnard. Burnard would score an unassisted goal with 11:26 remaining in the period to put the Knights up 6-2.
Junior Rob Forrester would do all he could to help Penn State claw their way back into the game by scoring the contest's next two goals and cutting RU's lead to two at the end of the period.
"I certainly wasn't comfortable with a two goal lead going into the fourth quarter," Stagnitta said. "But I felt like we were in control the entire game and that if we could come out and get one more goal in the fourth quarter then the game would be out of reach for them."
The Knights would get that one goal when Burnard scored with 3:08 left in the fourth quarter and add one more when Tad Stanwick scored with 2:33 seconds left in the game.
Those goals would come after Olin put on a spectacular fourth quarter performance by recording seven saves and holding Penn State scoreless in the period.
RU's cause was boosted early in the game, as they were able to jump out to a 3-0 lead in the first quarter that was capped off by a goal by mid-fielder Justin Pennington who had two goals on the day.
The win, which breaks the Knights two-game losing streak was an especially big win for RU not only because it was a conference win and their first road victory since March 24, 2007, but because it was against a hot team that was coming off of a big win against No. 9 Bucknell only four days before playing the Knights.
