Rutgers men’s lacrosse is focused ahead of a historic weekend for the program
Rutgers men’s lacrosse made history this past weekend, with the program now two wins away from what would be the first team national championship in Scarlet Knights history, regardless of the sport.
On Saturday, Rutgers beat No. 3 UPenn 11-9 to advance to the first final four in program history. Next up is No. 7 Cornell for a spot in the championship game.
Rutgers is 14-3 on the season and reached as high as third overall in the Inside Lacrosse rankings this season. They lost to Maryland, the consensus top team in the nation, in the Big Ten Tournament’s championship game.
The win over UPenn means that the Rutgers men’s lacrosse team advanced to the NCAA Tournament’s semifinals for the first time in program history. The Scarlet Knights had lost their previous seven games in the quarterfinals.
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Sophomore Shane Knobloch, who scored three goals in keying the win over UPenn, spoke about the significance of this run through the NCAA Tournament.
“It’s definitely special. It’s something that’s obviously never been done before so it’s pretty cool to be a part of it,” Knobloch said on the Big Ten Network.
“And as I said, this senior class definitely deserves it. All the guys deserve it.”
The NCAA Tournament semifinal will take place this Saturday at Pratt & Whitney Stadium at Rentschler Field.
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The winner of the Rutgers v. Cornell game will take on the winner of No. 1 Maryland against No. 5 Princeton.
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Maryland (twice) and Princeton (in a non-conference game) are the only two teams to beat the Scarlet Knights this season.
“I mean, it’s the same every week for us; we try to keep it really consistent that’s what our coach really likes us to do so,” Knobloch said on BTN.
“We’ll start the week going over Rutgers and then we’ll start preparing for the team we’re playing. We usually have – we always have a great game plan so we came out on top [against UPenn]. It was good.”
In the fall, Rutgers women’s soccer notched the first Big Ten regular season title in the athletic department’s history. Field hockey took the Big Ten Tournament title, another first for not just the program but the entire athletic department.
Women’s soccer would advance to the final four teams in the NCAA Tournament.
Rutgers entered the Big Ten in 2014.
