No. 13 Rutgers women's lacrosse remains undefeated with win over No. 18 Temple
The Rutgers women’s lacrosse team defeated Temple on the road 15-9 yesterday evening. The No. 13 Scarlet Knights (7-0, 0-0) set a new program record with their most wins to start a season.
The Owls (5-2, 0-0) opened the scoring within the first 2 minutes of play just before graduate student attacker Stephanie Kelly tied the game at 1-1 with 7:29 left in the first quarter. Temple then went on a 2-goal scoring run, which is tied for the team's longest unanswered run of the game.
Junior attacker Jenna Byrne ended the Owls' run with an assist from Kelly with 2:19 left in the quarter. Bryne scored her seventh goal of the season, while Kelly assisted 2 of the team's following 3 goals.
The second quarter kicked off with a goal from Temple before Rutgers went on its longest scoring run of the game. Four different Knights contributed to the 5-0 scoring run, and graduate student attacker Taralyn Naslonski secured her sixth hat trick of the season.
Rutgers more than doubled its lead going into the next half up 10-5. The program also controlled the stat line, beating the Owls in shots on goal, ground balls and draw controls.
The Knights carried their domination into the second half, posting a shutout in the third quarter and scoring 3 goals of their own.
Bryne and senior attacker Marin Hartshorn netted their second scores of the game while Naslonski bagged her fourth. Kelly set a new season high with six assists on the night. She ranks fourth in the country for total assists this season.
The final quarter saw Rutgers goals from Naslonski and junior midfielder Cassidy Spilis, with Spilis reaching 100 goals for her college career. Naslonski also hit a new milestone, tying for third all-time in points in the Knights program history. She passed Heather Jones at 206 with 207 total career points.
Rutgers is the first team to hold Temple to less than 10 goals this season.
Next time out, the Knights will head south to Harrisonburg, Virginia, facing James Madison. The Dukes (3-3, 0-0) are a .500 team on the season with a 7-2 all-time winning record in the series with Rutgers.
