No. 23 Rutgers goes to 2-0 in B1G Field Hockey

If you’re a Rutgers fan, this has been a tough weekend.

Wait, let me restate that. If you’re a Rutgers football fan this has been a rough weekend. Because Rutgers fans - in the broader sense - can celebrate a Big Ten sweep in field hockey.

The No. 23 Knights (7-3, 2-0 B1G) opened Big Ten play on Friday with a 2-0 win over Indiana (5-4, 0-2) and followed that with a 1-0 win over No. 19 Iowa (4-7, 0-3). Good stuff.

The last time we wrote about field hockey, the team lost its next two games, although one was to a ranked Princeton squad. The losses didn’t hurt the team much in the rankings, although we considered never writing about field hockey again.

Rutgers scored in the 29th minute on the Hoosiers as freshman Gianna Mancini knocked in a rebound off of a corner. While that would be enough scoring to win, it was followed up in the second half by redshirt sophomore Austyn Cuneo with the assist from freshman Daphne Groothuis, again off a corner. Gianna Glatz, yet another frosh, had the shutout with seven saves in goal.

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"It feels great to get our first Big Ten win," head coach Meredith Civico said. "The team was ready, focused and played to win today. We knew what we had to do against Indiana and their style of play. We were really happy that we were able to execute on attack penalty corners. I'm happy with the result today."

And they were ready and focused again today as the Hawkeyes visited Bauer Track and Field Hockey Complex. Katie Larmour had the lone score in the contest at the 9:27 mark in the first half, assisted by Daphne Groothuis. Iowa outshot the Knights 12-8 but were not able to find the back of the cage.

The Knight defense was strong in the second half with Glatz only needing to make two saves in the final 35 minutes.

The Knights next play on the road at current-No. 14 Northwestern on Friday.