Rutgers Field Hockey earns top seed in NCAA Tournament

Hours after winning the program’s first ever Big Ten Tournament title, Rutgers field hockey was named the top seed in the NCAA Tournament. The 18 team bracket was announced at 10 p.m. ET on Sunday night. The Scarlet Knights are the No. 1 seed and will host the winner of the play-in game between Delaware and Fairfield at 11 a.m. on Friday. The Scarlet Knights haven’t played potential foe Fairfield this season but defeated Delaware 2-0 on the road on September 19.

“To be able to keep the season going in NCAA Tournament play is amazing,” head coach Meredith Civico said. “To have won the tournament in the best field hockey conference in the NCAA is going to set us up for success moving forward. We’re so grateful to be able to continue to play.

This is the fourth NCAA Tournament appearance in program history. It’s the second appearance under Civico, as Rutgers earned a bid in 2018, ending a 32 year drought. Eleven players on the current roster played on that team. The Scarlet Knights are 2-3 all-time in the NCAA Tournament with the two other appearances coming in 1984 and 1986.

“Every girl on this team deserves this,” Gianna Glatz said. “Everyone put 100% of themselves into this. To be in this position going into the NCAA Tournament is amazing.”

Rutgers field hockey has set program records this season in wins (18), ranked wins (12), conference regular season wins (6) and top ten wins (6) along with its first ever Big Ten Tournament championship. They were No. 1 in the RPI rankings following their conference tournament title.

All four top seeds in the NCAA Tournament are from the Big Ten. Rutgers is No. 1, Iowa is No. 2, Michigan is No. 3 and Penn State is No. 4. Six teams from the Big Ten made the NCAA Tournament overall, with Maryland and Northwestern making it as well. The Scarlet Knights have a record of 7-3 against teams that made the tournament. One of their three losses came to St. Joseph’s, who RU could potentially play in the second round. Rutgers is 4-0 against the other three teams on their half of the bracket including Maryland (1-0), Syracuse (1-0) and Penn State (2-0).

NCAA.com

Rutgers is 15-1 at Bauer over the past two seasons and played in front of a record crowd of 1617 on Sunday in winning the Big Ten Tournament title.