Rutgers Field Hockey at 5-0 as Olympic Sports Open Up

While the love fest for Rutgers Football was going on during post game and highlight shows on BTN and FS1, there were a few other Rutgers teams in action, and some of it was really good stuff.

Field Hockey 4-0 (0-0 B1G)

Freshmen. Gotta love'em.

A scoreless first half at Penn (0-1) on Friday set up the opportunity for Rutgers' Daphne Groothuis to score the lone goal of the game with 12 minutes remaining for the 1-0 victory. The freshman made a move to beat two defenders. On the other end, another freshman kept the score sheet clean in goal. Gianna Glatz made three saves for the win.

Head coach Meredith Civico was very pleased with the team win. "The team settled into the game and really took control during the second half. I know we are taking quite a bit from this win as we move forward into Sunday's match."

Which brings us to that Sunda game with Old Dominion. Grothuis again was the leader, putting two goals into the cage as the Knights topped the Monarchs (1-3) by a 5-1 count. Four second half goals erased the 1-1 half time score. Sophomore Nikki Santore had a goal and an assist. Megan Cunningham and Linde van Schaik each had one tally apiece. Gianna Glatz had five saves to earn the win in goal.

"Today was a great win," head coach Civico said. "The team was smart, they stuck together and they executed the game plan. In the second half, they made some adjustments that we spoke about. Daphne Groothuis had an excellent game. She's really stepping up and being a contributor for us. I thought Nikki Santore had her best game of the season up in the front. The backs, the midfielders, and Gianna Glatz in goal were just so disciplined, tight, and did a fantastic job limiting ODU's opportunities. We can take momentum and confidence from this, but we're still taking it one game at a time and focusing on what we need to do to get better, game-to-game."

RU travels to Princeton on Friday for a 4:00 PM contest against the 0-2 Tigers.

Cross Country

A 1-2 finish for the men and women, respectively, at the Lehigh Invitational.

The Rutgers men had five Top 10 finishes (2-5-7-8-9) to edge the host Mountain Hawks by a single point. The Scarlet had 31 points and an average time of 18:51 to Lehigh's 32 points and their 1-3-6-10-12 finish and an average time of 18:52.

Rutgers sophomore Cole Pschunder was first across for the Scarlet Knights in 18:38.20, and second overall by merely two-tenths of a second.

“It was a good start for us,” said head coach Mike Mulqueen. “We have only had two hard workouts in the preseason, so having our time spread out over 29 seconds was very good. The guys should be encouraged about how we ran tonight.”

The women took second at the same meet. There were three Scarlet Knights finishing among the top 10. Freshman Olympia Martin made her RU debut and was RU's top finisher at 22:16.48.

West Virginia easily took the title, outpacing Rutgers by 32 points (RU scored 53 with third place Lehigh having 62).

Two Scarlet sophomores were in the top ten: Nadia Saponara (22:16.68) took eighth and Emma Bergman (22:23.61) was ninth, both registering new personal bests.

"We were pleased with the way they raced," said head coach James Robinson. "The first competition is a gauge to see where the fitness level is to begin the season. We'll come back to this course two more times, so this is an introduction."

Volleyball 3-3 (0-0 B1G)

It was not a good weekend for the Knights. Heading north to the Seton Hall Classic, Rutgers dropped both matches. Buffalo topped RU in the first, 3-2, while the hosts were less than gracious in dropping the Knights, 3-1 in the second match.

Against the Bulls, Rutgers won the first (25-10) and fourth (25-22) sets to set up the deciding fifth. Buffalo had a 4-1 start and a 4-0 run to take the final set, 15-9.

Against the Pirates, Rutgers got off to a strong start, winning the first set, 25-19. But the Pirates reeled off wins in the next three (25-18, 29-27, 25-18) to take the match and the team title.

Sahbria McLetchie had her most productive day as a Knight with a season-high mark of 17 kills, to go with 10 digs for her first double-double of the season against Buffalo. She one-upped herself in the nightcap with 19 kills.

Freshman Kamila Cieslik was named to the All-Tournament Team, her second such honor in as many tournaments to start her collegiate career. Cieslik totaled 33 kills throughout the two matches on a .417 hitting percentage, with four aces, 14 digs and eight blocks.

Rutgers travels west next weekend to the Missouri-Kansas City Kangaroo Klassic. They will face Northern Iowa, South Dakota and the host Kangaroos.