Rutgers women’s lacrosse earns first NCAA Tournament bid since 1999

The Rutgers women’s lacrosse team earned the program’s first NCAA Tournament berth since 1999 on Sunday night. They’ll play Drexel (13-2) in the First Round on Friday, May 14 at 4 p.m. ET at Stony Brook University

The Scarlet Knights have never won an NCAA Tournament and will be making its second appearance all-time.

Second year head coach Melissa Lehman has led Rutgers to six conference wins with five against ranked opponents. While they played a Big Ten only schedule, it is the first time Rutgers has won more than two conference games since joining the league. Sophomores Cassidy Spilis and Meagan Ball earned First Team All-Big Ten honors and led RU to the Big Ten semifinals last week before falling to undefeated conference champion Northwestern.

Rutgers beat Penn State, Maryland and Johns Hopkins for the first time in program history this season.

With an odd number of 29 teams in the newly expanded field from previous years, the top three seeded teams will receive a bye to the second round. The 13 winners in round one will comprise a second round of 16 teams along with those three teams that earned a first round bye.

The winner of Rutgers-Drexel will play the winner of Towson-Stony Brook in the Second Round.