No mercy: No. 16 Rutgers men's lacrosse rolls through Detroit Mercy
The Rutgers men's lacrosse team defeated Detroit Mercy 17-5 on a cold and rainy Tuesday afternoon at SHI Stadium on Busch campus. The Scarlet Knights (5-1, 0-0) earned their third straight win as they brace for a challenging schedule ahead.
No. 16 Rutgers wasted no time getting the offense rolling. Just more than a minute into the first quarter, senior midfielder Jack Aimone found the back of the net to get the juices flowing.
The Knights would go on to score 2 more goals before the Titans (0-3, 0-0) answered back with a goal from Eoghan Mullett, the lone score for Detroit Mercy in the opening quarter. Senior midfielders Nick Teresky and Shane Knobloch both responded with goals for Rutgers.
With 15 minutes in the rearview, the Knights were up 5-1 over the Titans.
The red-hot Rutgers offense got off to an even faster start in the second quarter, as graduate student attacker Ross Scott joined in on the scoring for the Knights with less than 30 seconds off the clock. The rest of the second quarter was all Rutgers on both ends of the field, as the Knights allowed no goals and only three shots on goal in the second quarter.
On the offensive end, senior midfielder James Ringer, graduate student midfielder John Sidorski and graduate student attacker Tanyr Krummenacher each scored twice for Rutgers in the quarter. Krummenacher recorded a first-half hat trick as he helped lead the Knights to a 12-1 lead at the half.
In the third quarter, Detroit Mercy tightened up its defense, keeping the Rutgers offense in check. At the 11:25 mark of the third quarter, the Titans opened the scoring with a goal from Drew Kessenich, cutting the Knights' lead to 10. Both teams would trade goals to end the third quarter as Rutgers held a comfortable 13-3 lead.
The Knights continued to build on their lead, outscoring Detroit Mercy 4-2 in the final quarter of play, with 2 goals coming off the stick of senior attacker Connor McDonough to extend their lead to 12 goals.
Redshirt freshman goalkeeper Cardin Stoller earned the win between the pipes, making four saves and only allowing a single goal in just one half of play as head coach Brian Brecht opted to give graduate student goalkeeper Seamus Fagan, senior goalkeeper Liam Gray and freshman goalkeeper Marco Wimmershoff some time in the cage as well.
Offensively, 11 different players tallied a goal for Rutgers, and five different players scored multiple times in today's contest.
"It's hard to have a quick turnaround with a mid-week game, but I do trust the way that our guys prepare and practice," Brecht said. "It's nice to be able to, with some injuries, get a lot of guys in the game and have the standard stay the way we like it to be, both offensively and defensively."
The Knights' next game will be played on Sunday at noon in a home matchup at SHI Stadium with in-state rival and No. 15-ranked Princeton.
"(It's) the 101st meeting between Rutgers and Princeton, so that's going to be an exciting day, but we have got to get better each day, and this was an opportunity for our whole program to get better and grow and, hopefully, give us momentum as we head into Big Ten play," Brecht said.
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