ANN ARBOR, MI. -- The Rutgers men's lacrosse team never gave up, but the fourth-seeded Scarlet Knights, ranked No. 11 in the country in the latest Inside Lacrosse poll, fell to top-seeded and No. 2 Maryland, 12-9, in the semifinals of the 2018 Big Ten Tournament on Thursday.
With the loss, Rutgers' season could have very well come to an end. Maryland improves to 31-1 all-time against the Scarlet Knights and has reached the conference tournament final for the third straight year.
Maryland's Bubba Fairman and Jared Bernhardt each scored three goals each while Logan Wisnauskas and Connor Kelly, the Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year, scored twice apiece. Wisnauskas added three assists. Bryce Young and Nick Brozowski scooped up four ground balls each and goalie Dan Morris made 12 saves.
Rutgers had seven different goals scorers led by Connor Veracruysse, who had three goals. Birthday boy Jules Heninburg recorded a goal and two outstanding assists, but pressed at times and tried to do too much. He had three turnovers and was getting double and tripled teamed. Christian Mazzone scored and tallied six ground balls while goalie Max Edelmann did all he could to stop the Terrapins offense, making 11 saves.
Rutgers caused nine turnovers and had nine turnovers itself. Maryland caused five and coughed the ball up 13 times.
"We really stuck to our game plan," Fairman, a freshman, told Big Ten Network. "We've played Rutgers so many times in the past, and I think once you play a team a bunch of times, you kind of get some tendencies and that's what helped us today."
One of the big factors coming into the contest was faceoffs. Rutgers had struggled mightily in its last couple games. Against Marlyand, the Scarlet Knights started 2-for-2 and won 10-of-24.
Rutgers grabbed its first lead at 2-1 with 8:10 to go in the first quarter on a Casey Rose goal off a feed from Ryan Gallagher. Rutgers also led 3-2 and 5-4 with 6:50 to go until halftime. Rutgers' fifth goal was Vercruysse's first of the day. Vercruysse was knocked down behind the net off to the left, but when he got up, he snuck toward the middle and Heningburg found him for the assist.
But, the Terrapins scored three straight goals and held a 7-5 advantage at halftime.
“I give Rutgers credit, I thought that they played a lot faster than us with more urgency and more tempo," Maryland head coach John Tillman said. "I thought we found our rhythm. Defensively, we starting communicating and sliding better. We got out in transition.”
Austin Divitcos registered a goal for Rutgers about two-and-a-half minutes into the third period after he caused a turnover on the other end to cut Maryland's lead to 7-6.
Defense led to offense.
However, almost a full 10 minutes of game time later, Bernhardt scored two goals back to back and just like that, the Terrapins led 9-6.
At this moment, it was gut-check time for Rutgers.
The Scarlet Knights answered the bell freshman Tommy Coyne found the back of the net to make 9-8. Maryland kept going back up by three, but Rutgers had an answer every time, except for the last.
"Some things didn't go our way," Divitcos said according to Rutgers Communications. "Maryland's a good team and things didn't fall for us today."
Rutgers will need a lot of help if it wants to make the NCAA Tournament with an at-large bid. First, Johns Hopkins needs to beat Ohio State in the other Big Ten Tournament semifinal. It would also make sense, for Rutgers fans, to root for Denver to top Georgetown in the Big East Tournament final and for Yale, Army, Robert Morris, and Delaware to win their conference tournaments. Rutgers fans should hope Colgate beats Syracuse as well. Rutgers beat Army and the Orange in head-to-head battles earlier this season.
If that's all she wrote for the talented Rutgers 14-senior class, which finished with 35 total wins, one behind the 36 set by the 1989 class, it would be a disappointing ending to great careers.
