Rutgers Women’s Lacrosse Suffers 12-9 Defeat to #7 Cornell

The Rutgers women’s lacrosse team lost a hard fought battle against #7 ranked Cornell on Saturday at High Point Solutions Stadium, falling 12-9. However, it was a sign that the program continues to make strides this season. Rutgers trailed by just one goal at the half and the game was tied at 7 with just over 18 minutes to play in the game. Unfortunately, Cornell rattled off four straight goals to pull away for the victory.

Rutgers did outshoot the Big Red 34-27 and forced 16 turnovers, while only committing 10 themselves. They went toe to toe with one of the top teams in the country, but they just couldn’t find the back of the net often enough down the stretch.

“The final statistics showed that we were right there with Cornell, which makes the loss that more disappointing,” said head coach Laura Brand-Sias. “We’ll build off of this as we move forward to compete against a very impressive Maryland team next weekend.”

Eight different Scarlet Knights registered a goal in the game, but Kristina Dunphey was the only player to score twice. Co-captain Amanda Turturro was the only player to notch any assists in the game, tallying two, in addition to her one goal. On the season, Turturro leads the team in points with 32, producing 16 goals and 16 assists, the most on the roster. Dunphey is second with 31 points and leads the team with 22 goals. Both players are having very strong senior campaigns.

Rutgers was just 2-7 last season against ranked opponents and were outscored by an average margin of over 9 goals per defeat. This season, they are 1-3 against ranked opponents and in addition to the three goal loss to Cornell on Saturday, they suffered a close 11-9 loss to #11 Penn back in March. There is no question they are far more competitive against top ranked opponents this season, while already exceeding their win total from the 2016 campaign, when they finished with a 6-12 record.

Unfortunately, the road only gets harder for Rutgers (7-5, 1-1), as they resume Big Ten play in their next contest against the #1 ranked team in the country, the Maryland Terrapins. The game is Saturday, April 8th at High Point Solutions Stadium in a 7 p.m. start time.

One final note, after honoring the favorite professors of players before their last game versus Niagara, the team honored Genna Camiolo before the game, who has been an honorary member of the team since 2008. She is part of the "Friends of Jaclyn" organization, which is a charitable foundation that raises public awareness for pediatric brain tumors.