Rutgers Men’s Lacrosse Blows Past NJIT in Snow at Highpoint Solutions Stadium

For the second time on the season, Rutgers was coming off a spirited effort against a ranked opponent when it fell just a goal short of #10 Princeton in midweek.  The last time, the Knights couldn’t parlay the result into a win in their next game.  This time, things were different.  Rutgers tallied a season high 21 goals, dominating the Highlanders of NJIT in the snow by the count of 21=2.

In its second snow game, Rutgers brought their best game of the year to overwhelmed NJIT who left Piscataway with an 0-6 record.  The Knights improved to 4-6 as they get set for conference play.

Once again, it was the omnipresent Scott Bieda getting things going for the Knights as he opened Rutgers account with an unassisted goal at the ten minute mark.

Two minutes later, Beida struck again when Chad Tolliver found Bieda open in front of the cage to get RU off to a fast 2-0 start.

The Knights would score two more before the end of the first and when Kris Alleyne stopped a last second attempt by NJIT’s Joe Lomeli, Rutgers had its most dominant defensive quarter of the season shutting out the Highlanders en-route to a 4-0 lead.

NJIT finally got on the board when John Roach found the twine, but RU answered less then three minutes later when Connor Murphy scored off a great pass from Jules Henningburg to regain a four-goal advantage for RU.

However, the second quarter belonged to the home-standing Knights.  Rutgers scored 8 of the quarter’s 10 goals highlighted by four tallies by Rutgers’ Brian Goss which is the only thing that could have outshined Bieda’s first half hat trick and five-point half.   Rutgers dominated the action outshooting NJIT 24-8 by the break, and RU led the game 12-2 at half.

The Highlanders changed net-minders swapping Josh Solomon in for the struggling Nick Marzullo to open the second half but Rutgers proved that it wasn’t the gaolie holding NJIT back on the day.

RU stayed as just over a minute into the third quarter, Jules Henninburg became the third Scarlet Knights to post a hat trick on the day and  just 30 seconds later, Bieda posted his fourth tally of the day giving Rutgers a 14-2 lead.

Bieda picked up his 7th point of the game when he found a wide open Brian Goss who could do no wrong on the day firing home for the fifth time at the 7:52 mark of the third.

All told, RU scored 5 times in the quarter, and for the second time in the game, RU shutout NJIT and led 17-2 heading into the fourth.

With the huge advantage, Rutgers coach Brian Brecht utilized the opportunity to get Jake Anderson some minutes in goal and he came up with a couple saves within the first few miutes of action.

Ryan Hollingsworth joined the multi-goal club when he tallied his second with just under 9 minutes remaining in the contest, giving Rutgers an 18-2 advantage.

Jacob Coretti scored for the first time of the season when he found the twine at the 8:09 mark.   Liam King capped the scoring with under 30 seconds to play.

Notes:

Rutgers keepers stopped an astonishing 80 percent of shots on target including all four shots Jake Anderson faced.

Three Scarlet Knights scored at least 4 goals led by Brian Goss who tallied 5 on the day.

Freshman Liam King goal was his first career goal.

Rutgers heads into Big Ten play with a matchup against Johns Hopkins – the Knights third ranked opponent thus far this season.