No. 6 Rutgers men's lacrosse defeats No. 8 Ohio State for highest-ranked win of season
The Rutgers men’s lacrosse team earned its highest-ranked win of the season, defeating Ohio State 18-7 this afternoon at SHI Stadium on Busch campus. It marks the program’s best 10 game start since 1956.
Ten different players found the net, with junior attacker Ross Scott leading the team with seven points on 4 goals and three assists. Senior attacker Mitch Bartolo shared the team scoring lead, also finishing with 4 goals.
“We had a really good team win today,” Scott said. “It started with the defense making big stops helping our offense find our stride … We were playing fast. We weren't thinking too much.”
The No. 8 Buckeyes (6-3, 0-1) got off to a hot start, opening the game with a 3-0 scoring run in the first 7.5 minutes. Scott White, Jackson Reid and Ari Allen each had one goal in the run.
The No. 6 Scarlet Knights (9-1, 1-0) regrouped and scored 2 goals within 33 seconds of each other to make it a 3-2 game heading into the second period. Senior attacker Ronan Jacoby then tied the game with an unassisted goal with eight minutes to play in the first half.
“We really just started going out and pressing them a little bit more — making them beat us, making them earn a slide,” senior defender Jaryd Jean-Felix said. “And once we did that, we started playing together as a unit.”
Ohio State would answer to go back up 4-3, but it would be the team's last lead of the game, as Rutgers finished the first half on a 5-1 run in the final 4 minutes of the first half. Heading into the halftime break, the Knights had an 8-5 lead.
“Sometimes we just need some time to settle in, and I think that's what we did,” Scott said. “We got a couple of big goals to start out and once we found our game again, we began to settle in.”
Rutgers picked up where it left off in the third quarter, scoring 4 of the next 5 goals in the third quarter to take a 12-6 lead into the final period.
The program closed out the game with 6 unanswered goals in the final 13 minutes to seal the win. The Knights outscored the Buckeyes 10-2 in the entire second half, part of a defensive performance that saw the seventh-best offense in the country held to just 7 goals.
Faceoffs were another area where Rutgers had the advantage, with junior faceoff specialist Jonathan Dugenio winning 15 of 26 draws in the win.
“(Dugenio’s) not just a faceoff guy, he’s a lacrosse player,” said head coach Brian Brecht after the win.
The Knights return to Big Ten action next Sunday night, where they will stay at home and host Johns Hopkins at SHI Stadium.
For more updates on the Rutgers men's lacrosse team, follow @TargumSports on Twitter.
