No. 17 Rutgers men’s lacrosse defeats St. John’s 17-10

The no. 17 Rutgers men’s lacrosse team improved to 2-0 on the season with a 17-10 victory over St. John’s on Saturday at SHI Stadium. With the game tied at 3 early in the second quarter, reigning Big Ten Defensive Player of the Week Ethan Rall scored his first career goal. It began a 7-1 scoring run for the Scarlet Knights that extended into the third quarter and the Johnnies never got closer than a four goal deficit the rest of the game.

Adam Charalambides led the way with 6 goals and an assist, while Ryan Gallagher produced his second straight 4 goal performance this season, as well as an assist. Michael Sanguinetti was the only other multiple goal scorer, finishing with 2 goals and an assist.

Stephen Russo started once again and made 14 saves in his second win of the season. Garrett Bullet had a career high 6 ground balls.

Shots were even in the contest at 49, while St. John’s held a + 16 margin on ground balls and won 25 of 31 faceoffs. However, RU did hold a +9 turnover margin and was 23 of 24 on clears.

After the victory, head coach Brian Brecht said,“We played really well today. We played with a lot of tempo and a lot of energy for the second game in a row. We got a lot of good participation today from a lot of different areas. We cleared the ball exceptionally well. I was pleased with the team’s effort.”

Charalambides added, “We were playing our way. Our team can be pretty lethal on offense when all six guys on offensive are banging the ball around. Our guys were doing a great job of drawing slides, that’s what allows me to get open, so credit to those guys for helping set it up.”

No. 17 Rutgers (2-0) will travel to no. 15 Army (1-0) next Saturday, February 15 for a key early season matchup. The Scarlet Knights have lost to the Black Knights each of the past two seasons and will look to start 3-0 for the first time since 2017.