No. 3 Rutgers women's soccer starts season strong in New Mexico
After a historic 2021 season, the Rutgers women’s soccer team has not slowed down to start 2022. To begin this year’s campaign, the No. 3 Scarlet Knights (2-0-0) are unbeaten with back-to-back road wins over New Mexico and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV).
Rutgers outscored its opponents 6-1 in the two games that each happened in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The season started with a 1-0 win against the Lobos (1-1-0) with the lone goal scored by junior forward Allison Lowrey in the 21st minute. In the first two games, Lowrey has 2 goals, two assists and 6 points.
In the win, the Knights totaled 17 shots and five shots on goal and committed one less foul than New Mexico. On the other hand, the Lobos took 14 of their own shots and had three shots on goal. In the way of those three shots on goal was graduate student goalkeeper Meagan McClelland, who opened up the first game of her final year on the Banks with a strong performance.
McClelland picked up her 37th career shutout in the win, which is good enough to be the NCAA active leader in this category, while sophomore forward Riley Tiernan picked up her 14th career assist.
Three days later against Rebels (0-2-0), Rutgers went from 1 goal to 5 goals scored by five different players.
Sophomore forward Gia Girman got the opening goal of the match just 61 seconds in, while junior midfielders Sara Brocious and Sam Kroeger each found the back of the net before the 26th minute.
Lowrey, who also assisted on each of the first 2 goals of the game, scored her 2nd goal of the season in the 30th minute, putting the Knights up 4-0 by the time the first half ended.
UNLV gave more of a fight in the second half, scoring at the 75th minute of play, but graduate student forward Hailey Gutowski answered less than 5 minutes later to put the final nail in the coffin.
Rutgers would end up with a 5-1 win, as the Knights outshot the Rebels 16-10 and 10-4 in shots on goal.
As Rutgers opened up with impressive wins in New Mexico, Lowrey received personal recognition for her strong start. On Tuesday, the junior was named the Big Ten Offensive Player of the Week for her game-winning goal against New Mexico and her contributions to 3 of the 5 goals scored against UNLV.
The Knights will look to continue their early season success in their third game of the year today against Providence with kickoff at 6 p.m. The program’s home opener will come on Sunday against Buffalo with kickoff scheduled for 1 p.m.
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