The Rutgers women’s soccer team released its 2023 regular season schedule on July 17th. The Scarlet Knights will start their season playing two exhibition games in the middle of August before playing a packed 18-game regular season schedule.
11 of Rutgers’ regular season games will be played at home at Yurcak Field. The Knights will start their season at home against Holy Cross on August 17th at 7 p.m.
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Rutgers will play a tough eight-game non-conference schedule in 2023. The Knights' most anticipated non-conference game will be its home game against Georgetown on September 4th at 1 p.m. The Hoyas finished first in the Big East last year and made it to the second round of the NCAA Tournament. They project to finish at the top of the Big East standings once again in 2023.
The rest of Rutgers' non-conference schedule includes three more teams that made the NCAA Tournament last year in Hofstra, Fairleigh Dickinson University (FDU) and North Carolina State. The Wolfpack is a team to watch out for as the Knights will be away, and NC State is battle-tested due to playing in a strong ACC conference.
Rutgers will also be traveling down to Princeton, New Jersey, to take on Princeton again. In 2022, the Knights beat the Tigers by a score of 3-0.
Rutgers will be looking to replicate last year's success in the non-conference schedule. In 2022, the Knights went a perfect 8-0-0 in non-conference games.
Rutgers’ 10-game Big Ten conference schedule will start on September 17th in Bloomington, Indiana, against Indiana. The Knights' first conference game at Yurcak Field will be against rival Penn State on September 21st.
Other games to keep an eye on will be Rutgers’ home games against Michigan State on October 15th and Northwestern on October 22nd. The Spartans finished first in the Big Ten regular season standings last year and brought back a strong team for the 2023 season.
The Wildcats are the Knights' last game of the regular season and maybe the early favorites to finish first in the Big Ten. Last year, Northwestern got to the third round of the NCAA Tournament. Rutgers will also be looking for revenge, as the Wildcats knocked them out in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament last year.
Head coach Mike O’Neil named senior Becci Fluchel, graduate student Allison Lynch and senior Emma Misal as team captains for the 2023 season. Fluchel, Lynch and Misal will offer an important veteran presence to the team and will most likely lead the backline in the upcoming season.
The Knights will look to have a bounce-back year after a tumultuous 2022 campaign that saw them start 9-0-0, before losing their last four games of the regular and postseason. Thanks to a strong roster, Rutgers will once again be positioned to be at the top of the Big Ten standings in 2023.
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