Rutgers Men’s Lacrosse Upset Bid of #3 Maryland Comes up Short

(Via ScarletKnights.com)

Piscataway, NJ – For Just over two quarters of action, it looked as if Rutgers Lacrosse was set to arrive and make its mark on the Big Ten.   RU had the #3 ranked Maryland Terripins on the ropes at Highpoint Solutions Stadium on Sunday night.

The team took a 4-2 lead ino the half and got it to 6-3 midway through the third before the Maryland attack got going.

RU built its lead with tremendous hustle.  They got to seemingly every loose ball, and won almost every draw en-route to the big advantage.

Rutgers fell behind 1-0 early, but outworked Maryland for much of the first quarter nearly tying the game as the quarter drew to a close.

The second quarter belonged to Rutgers as it scored four of the five goals including Christian Trasolini firing home from long range getting Rutgers ahead 2-1.  They won the Subsequent draw and Jeff George fired a shot that trickled past Maryland keeper Kyle Berlohr and RU seemed on its way to the monumental and unlikely win.

Maryland cut it to 3-2 when Bryan Cole netted for the 6th time of the season at the 3:21 mark of the third.

However, RU responded just 5 seconds later when Joe Nardella scored a highlight real tally going faceoff ‘X’ down the middle to score on a tremendous individual effort.

Rutgers scored two of the game’s next three goals in the third period highlighted by Trasolin’s second of the game.  However, the Terps closed the quarter on a massive run.

Maryland scored the net four goals including Matt Rambo’s 24th of the year and took a 7-6 lead to the final frame.

Maryland increased it to 8-6 in the fourth when Rambo scored to open the period.

Rutgers however, didn’t give up.  Brian Goss scored from long range to get the Knights within a goal and they would tie it when Scott Bieda finally made his mark on the game.

Held goalless for over three quarters, Bieda shook  defenders with a series of fakes and found the goal with a rocket of a shot to knot the game at 8 apiece.

Maryland however, would have the last say in the game.  Matt Rambo completed his 4th period hat trick when he fired home with just 13 seconds left.

Rutgers falls to 4-9 and 0-3 in league.  Maryland escaped with the win and improves to 11-1 on the year, and 3-0 in league.