No. 6 Men’s Lacrosse Marches Past No. 22 UMASS, 11-5

The Rutgers men’s lacrosse team traveled to Amherst and came away with their first road victory of the season, a convincing 11-5 result versus Umass, affectionately known as the Garber Gorillas, after former Hall of Fame coach Richard Garber, who roamed the sidelines for 35 years from 1955-1990. The Minutemen Gorillas would actually lead after one quarter of play, 3-2.

David Sprock would open the scoring off an assist from Dante Kulas exactly a minute into the match before Umass would tie up the score, 1-1. Shane Knobloch would net an unassisted goal at the 8:55 mark before Umass added two consecutive goals of their own to lead 3-2 heading into the 2nd quarter.

Unlike prior games, where Rutgers was engaged in tight matches entering the 3rd quarter, the Knights basically erased all doubt in the 2nd frame, outscoring the Minutemen 5-0, to head into halftime with a comfortable 7-3 cushion. Dante Kulas, Eric Civetti, and Sprock all tallied goals, with Ross Scott adding his first and second of the match 41 seconds apart, the latter with just 13 seconds left until the half.

The 3rd quarter would produce just two goals - one on a man up situation by Kulas, his 2nd of the match, and the other by Umass star attacker Gabriel Procyck, who had remained scoreless until that point, closing the gap to 8-4 in favor of the Knights. That 4th goal by the Gorillas ended a nearly 28-minute scoring drought. The stout Scarlet defensive performance was led by Ethan Rall and Bobby Russo, who had three and two caused turnovers in the game, respectively.

Jack Aimone would score his 15th of the season for the Scarlet Nights nearly two minutes into the 4th quarter and Civetti would notch his 2nd of the match at the 11:38 mark to give the Knights a commanding 10-4 lead. The Gorillas would add a goal at the 4:58 mark. Noah Daniels scored with 2:18 left for the Knights to close out the scoring. Final Score: RU 11 Umass 5.

Rutgers improves to 7-1 on the season while Umass drops to 4-3.

Notable

• Rutgers outshot Umass, 53-32
• Kyle Mullin had an excellent game in goal for the Knights, making 12 saves
• Not to be outdone, UMass’s Matt Knote stood on his head, racking up an impressive 20 saves and literally keeping this game from getting out of hand
• The Scarlet Knights cleaned up their clearing game finally, going 18-19 on clears
• Rutgers held their own on face-offs, winning 10 of 20 with Jonathan DuGenio winning 8 of 17 and Joe Neuman, who continues to impress, winning 2 of his 3

Next Up:

A primetime matchup as conference play begins, against the #19 Buckeyes on Sunday, March 26th in Columbus, Ohio. The game will air 7 p.m. live on the Big Ten Network.