Amherst, Mass.– No. 6 Rutgers men’s lacrosse scored goals in bunches in the last few minutes of the match against UMass on Saturday afternoon. Seven different Scarlet Knights scored goals to carry them to an 11-5 victory at Garber Field. RU cut a 3-2 deficit after one quarter with a 5-0 second period to put the game the away.
UMass had a one-goal advantage in the opening frame, but the Scarlet Knights outscored the Gorillas 5-0 in the second to help them pull away from them in the second period. Massachusetts now has a 4-3 record overall, while Rutgers improve to 7-1 for the season.
Five different Gorillas provided the five scores on the day for UMass with graduate student Gabriel Procyk also adding an assist while extending his goal scoring streak to six straight matches.
For the Scarlet Knights, Dante Kulas paced the team with four points on two goals and two assists, while Ross Scott, David Sprock, and Eric Civetti had two goals apiece. Shane Knobloch contributed a goal and an assist to round out the high voltage offense on the day.
Rutgers took 1-0 and 2-1 leads early in the first on goals from Sprock and Knobloch, but Massachusetts’s early rally had the Gorillas up, 3-2, after the first frame.
The Knights answered with a 5-0 second period to take a 7-3 lead going int the break. UMass managed just three total shots and zero on target in the second as UMass committed seven turnovers. The attack took advantage with unanswered goals from Kulas, Civetti, Sprock, and a pair from Scott, which came within 41 seconds apart from each other.
Kulas quickly tied the match at 3-3, getting his first goal of the day just 15 seconds into the second quarter. That started a 5-0 period for Rutgers, part of a 6-0 run that Kulas capped with a man-up tally at the 8:45 mark of the third.
Procyk broke up the offensive drought for the Gorillas with 6:27 remaining in the third quarter, picking up his team-leading 15th goal of the season.
The Scarlet Knights out-shot UMass 53-32 on the day and went 1-for-3 in extra-man opportunities, while the Gorillas were 0-for-1. Each squad won 10 of 20 faceoffs and the Scarlet Knights went 18-for-19 on clear attempts and Massachusetts was 11-for-15.
Goalkeeper Matt Knote had 20 stops for UMass, one shy of matching his career best and Kyle Mullin totaled 12 saves for Rutgers. Redshirt sophomore Caleb Hammett collected a game-high six ground balls.
