Rutgers men’s soccer team (1-2-1) earned its first victory of the season with a 2-0 triumph over Saint Peter’s (0-2-2) on Monday night at Yurcak Field. It was a strong performance following a 2-1 loss at Princeton on Friday night. Head coach Jim McElderry inserted five different players into the starting line and it led to an aggressive attack for RU. The Scarlet Knights outshot the Peacocks 21-4 overall and held an 11-2 advantage with shots on goal.
Despite dominating play, the game was scoreless until freshman Luciano Sanchez scored in the 58th minute. He was assisted by Jackson Temple and Matthew Acosta.
Sophomore Ian Abbey put the game away with his first goal of the season in the 82nd minute. He was assisted by Curt Calov and Nico Rosamilia.
Aurie Briscoe started in goal for the first time this season and made two saves to produce the first clean sheet of his career. The other four players to make their first starts of the season including Rosamilia, Nick Collins, Aidan Flynn and Erick Ruiz. In addition, Gabriel Addo and William Baker came off the bench for their first action of the season. McElderry utilized 20 players overall in the win on Monday night.
With his second assist of the season, Temple now leads Rutgers with 4 points through 4 games. Sanchez leads RU with 12 shots and seven on net following his first goal of 2023.
Rutgers is now 10-1-1 all-time against St. Peter’s.
The Scarlet Knights will continue non-conference play with a road contest against UCLA (1-1) on Saturday, September 9 at 7:00 p.m. ET. The Bruins advanced to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament last season. The two programs met at Yurcak Field on October 29, 2022 with UCLA winning 1-0. The two schools are set to become Big Ten foes entering the 2024 season.
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Henry Rutgers
September 5, 2023 at 9:30 am
The thing I like about Coach McElderry is that he uses his non-conference games to try new combinations when he realizes the previous game plan needs tuning. St. Peter’s was supposed to be the equivalent of the women’s version of FDU. Unfortunately, RU struggled. Yes, we ultimately prevailed but we struggled. I’m not worried about the Men’s team improving as the coach has demonstrated his willingness to make adjustments quickly which is not the case with the Women’s team. For the women it’s a lot of words but no substantive changes just the more of the same but we’ll try harder. Our Men’s team will get better and contend for the Big Ten again.
pj43
September 6, 2023 at 4:53 pm
I’ll buy into it being early in the season and all of that, but your comment regarding the ladies makes it difficult for me to avoid the feeling that maybe they’re just overrated based on some recent big success. Hope you’re right about the men and we’re both wrong about the ladies.
Henry Rutgers
September 6, 2023 at 8:15 pm
I’d be delighted to be wrong.
Aaron Breitman
September 6, 2023 at 8:47 pm
I will say the roster is loaded with top 10-15 ranked recruiting classes. They were picked third in the conference and unranked to start the season. So we are right to have high expectations but they’ve lost some national clout along the way.