Rutgers Women’s Lacrosse: Off A Successful Road Trip, Scarlet Knights Prepare to Open Home Slate with Delaware

Laura Barnd Sias’s Rutgers women’s lacrosse team was up against it to start the 2018 Season.

Opening with a tough loss at Temple, Rutgers faced two more road games and the possibility of putting itself behind the 8-ball to start the season.

What followed was pure dominance.

After dispatching LIU Brooklyn by a convincing scoreline, Rutgers downed Monmouth in Long Branch, NJ by a similar scoreline, 19-8. R.U. has now outscored its last two opponents by a combined score of 34-12,

In the win, sophomore Samantha Budd scored an astonishing 6 goals and Abbey Brooks added a hat trick for the Knights.

The numbers told the story for Rutgers as the Knights outshot M.U. 35-17, and won 20 groundballs to the Hawks 11.

Rutgers also did well on draw controls winning 16 of the 29 contested draws.

Next, Rutgers faces Delaware at Highpoint Solutions Stadium today at 3 p.m. as it opens its home slate riding the momentum of a 2-game win streak, and a solid 2 and 1 start to the 2018 season.

In this fixture last season, the Knights fell convincingly at U.D. by a scoreline of 17-5.

Rutgers also entered that contest with a 2 and 1 record and was also riding a 2-game win streak that Delaware stopped.

This Delaware team enters the match with a record of 1-1 and has lost its only road game, perhaps a good sign for Rutgers.

Delaware is off of its first win of the season over Lasalle after losing its opener at UPenn.

Delaware has been outscored 25-21 over the season’s first two games, and has conceded 60 shots in thus far this season.

In the short sample of two games, Delaware’s offense is led by Claire d’Antonio who has 4 goals on the season, tied with Katie Caddigan who also has 4 goals.

Delaware has been efficient thus far this season. Of the 37 shots that have been on frame, 21 of them have gone in the net. Interestingly, of those 21 goals, the Blue Hens only have 6 total assists on the season.

Once again, Rutgers should have its opportunities to score, and it should be much closer this year in this matchup. R.U. is looking to move to 3-1 for the first time since 2014. In that season, Delaware was Rutgers third win of the season.