Penn State Men’s Lacrosse at Rutgers Preview
What’s been a disappointing season for Penn State is quickly coming to an end with the regular-season finale on the horizon.
Penn State will travel to take on a formidable opponent in No. 4 Rutgers on Saturday looking to end the year on the right foot.
The Nittany Lions enter the game with a 3-9 record on the season and were unable to pick up their second consecutive conference win in a losing effort against Johns Hopkins last week.
In the 13-10 road loss, Johns Hopkins was able to jump out to a 9-4 start by the end of the first half and the Nittany Lions couldn’t recover from there.
Mac Costin recorded a hat trick for Penn State but no other Nittany Lion scored more than two goals.
Costin now has two hat tricks in his last three games and has scored eight goals during that span.
He and the rest of the Nittany Lions will now take on a Rutgers team they haven’t beaten since the 2019 season.
The Scarlet Knights come into the game only having lost two games all season long.
With an 11-2 record and a 3-1 conference record, the Scarlet Knights have been cruising all season long with their only main competition in the conference being a Maryland team that defeated them 17-9 earlier in the year.
Rutgers is coming off a close road win against Michigan.
Ronan Jacoby led the way with three goals in the 13-12 win where the Scarlet Knights paved off a Michigan fourth-quarter comeback.
Jacoby ranks third on the Scarlet Knights in goals with 28 as the two players ranked above him in Ross Scott and Mitch Bartolo both have 30 goals or more.
Scott leads both players with 42 points on the season.
For both teams, this will be the last game of the season before the Big Ten tournament which will take place in College Park, Maryland.
Even with losses, both teams appear to be locked into their respective seeds for the tournament with Rutgers at No. 2 and Penn State at No. 5.
Rutgers would receive a first-round bye while Penn State would match up against Johns Hopkins in the first round for a second straight season.
Logan Bourandas is a third-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email lxb5412@psu.edu.
