Rutgers women's lacrosse remains undefeated with win over Monmouth
The Rutgers women’s lacrosse team kept its perfect record alive, defeating Monmouth 19-8 yesterday. The win marks the No. 14 Scarlet Knights’ (5-0, 0-0) second 5-0 start to a season in program history and their first since 2010.
Junior defender Meghan Ball earned Big Ten Defensive Player of the Week earlier this week. The conference cited her game-high performance on draw controls and caused turnovers in the team's win over Lehigh on Sunday. This award marks Ball’s second Big Ten Defensive Player of the Week accolade.
The Knights got off to a strong start in the first quarter and led 7-2 at the end of the period. Junior midfielder Cassidy Spilis earned her hat trick late in the second quarter, making the score 10-4. Spilis scored her third hat trick in a row and fourth of the season.
Toward the end of the game, junior midfielder Ashley Campo and senior attacker Marin Hartshorn added 2 goals to the tally to help round out the scoring.
With just 21 seconds left in the third quarter, graduate student attacker Taralyn Naslonski earned her 5th point of the game off a solo goal and the 200th point of her career. Naslonski is the fourth player in program history to reach this milestone and now joins Denise Reed, Katie Batiuk and Heather Jones.
"Rutgers is such a big part of my life," Naslonski said. "Having both of my parents and uncle go here, it's an honor to reach this milestone. But I couldn't have done it without the help of my teammates."
Naslonski found the back of the net 5 times this game, tying the game high. Ball also led the team in draw controls after putting up eight tonight.
Rutgers gave the Hawks (2-1, 0-0) its first loss of the season. Monmouth won its last two games and beat LIU in its most recent win.
The Knights put up several new season highs with points and goals while also tying their high of seven assists against Army.
Rutgers will host Villanova in the last of its three consecutive home games Saturday at 1 p.m. Live stats will be provided at the start of the game at ScarletKnights.com.
“We just started firing on all cylinders later on in the game … I think our draw unit really killed it toward the end. (Ball) is a beast on the draw, she was just getting us those possessions … So I think all over the field we just started connecting, putting the ball in the back of the net.” Naslonski said in a post-game interview.
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