Rutgers men's lacrosse continues road trip against Stony Brook
It’s a second-straight weekend on the road for Rutgers men’s lacrosse. The team will head out to Long Island tomorrow to take on Stony Brook in search of its sixth win of the season.
The No. 4 Scarlet Knights (5-0, 0-0) are coming off two ranked wins, most recently a comeback win over then-No. 19 Loyola last weekend, and are entering the weekend with the best record in Division I men's lacrosse.
They square up against a Seawolves (4-0, 0-0) team that is coming off a 4-0 start to the season, including two wins against teams that Rutgers also beat, LIU and St. John’s.
Stony Brook poses several challenges to the Knights, with the two main ones being offense and faceoffs.
The Seawolves are among the best scoring offenses in the country, having scored 14.5 goals per game to be among the top 15 in that category.
They are a tough matchup at the faceoff spot, with their starter Renz Conlon currently ninth in the country in faceoffs, having won 62.3 percent of his draws. They also are among the nation’s top teams in ground balls collected, averaging 36.75 ground balls per game.
For Rutgers, it’s been a dominant start in just about every category. As a whole, the program outscored its opponents 77-44 through the first five games of the year, with an average goal differential of 6.6 goals per game.
The attack has averaged 15.4 goals per game, good for 12th in the country. The attack also features three attackers already with 10 or more goals this year. Senior midfielder Ronan Jacoby and senior attacker Mitch Bartolo have led the way so far, with 13 and 12 goals, respectively.
Defensively, the Knights are currently eighth in the nation in goals allowed, with senior goalkeeper Colin Kirst posting his best career numbers with a 8.63 goals against average.
Kirst has saved 60.2 percent of the shots he’s faced in five starts. Senior long-stick midfielder Ethan Rall also leads the Big Ten with 2.2 caused turnovers per game. Junior faceoff specialist Jonathan Dugenio has won 61.3 percent of his faceoffs.
After this weekend, Rutgers will conclude its three-game road trip with a short drive down to take on No. 18 Princeton in the Meistrell Cup, the program’s oldest rivalry. It will mark the third ranked matchup of the season for the Knights and the first matchup of this rivalry since March 2020.
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