Michigan State women's soccer falls 3-1 to No. 19 Rutgers

EAST LANSING  – An early Rutgers goal was too much to overcome, as the Michigan State women’s soccer team fell to No. 19 Rutgers, 3-1, Sunday afternoon at DeMartin Stadium.

“We played a competitive game against a very good team this afternoon,” said head coach Tom Saxton. “I believe we competed at a high level for the entire 90 minutes even though we did give up some soft goals. That was a very good team, a team that was in the national semifinals last year, has a high RPI, and we played hard and gave them everything we could. We just need to know that we can play at this level, but we have to start doing a better job in front of our own goal.”

With the loss, the Spartans fell to 5-6-1 overall, and 2-3 in the Big Ten Conference, while Rutgers improved to 8-2-2 on its campaign, and 3-1-1 in conference play.

Rutgers started the game strong with a corner kick followed by a header towards the net, but junior Savanna Wojtanowski recorded her first save of the game. Michigan State answered Rutgers with three consecutive corner kicks, and on the last of the three corner kicks, junior Kristelle Yewah sent a header toward the net, but it was blocked on the goal line by a Rutgers defender.

The Scarlet Knights were the first to find the back of the net, in the 17th minute to put the Spartans in an early 1-0 deficit. Rutgers sent a shot off the post, which was rebounded by Colby Ciarrocca who caught Wojtanowski off guard before sending her shot to the bottom right back corner of the net.

Michigan State saw its second opportunity of the game in the 33rd minute as sophomore Lexy Warner put a shot towards the net, but it blocked out-of-bounds by a pair of Rutgers defenders giving MSU a corner kick. Senior Marisa Oleksiak sent the corner kick to the top of the 18, and junior Morgan McKerchie got her foot on it, but the ball sailed slightly over the goal.

At the half, Rutgers outshot MSU by a close 8-6 margin, while both teams recorded four corner kicks. Wojtanowski tallied two saves in the half.

At the start of the second half, the Scarlet Knights wasted no time adding an insurance goal in the 50th minute. After a pair of touch passes from Tori Prager and Nicole Whitley, Jennifer Anders netted the goal to put Rutgers up 2-0.

The Spartans tried to capitalize immediately after sending a shot through the net, but the goal was called off due to MSU offsides. The offsides call didn’t discourage the Spartans as they found themselves with another scoring opportunity in the 53rd minute. Oleksiak had her fifth corner kick of the day, where she connected with VanDyke who headed the ball to the top left corner to cut Rutgers’ lead 2-1.

The Scarlet Knights tallied a third goal in the 62nd minute, and despite the offensive effort Michigan State could not generate another goal, and Rutgers walked away with the 3-1 victory. Wojtanowski recorded seven saves in being dealt the loss, moving her record to 1-2 on the season.

“We need to have confidence going in to these two upcoming road games,” said Saxton. “We have to believe that we can play at the highest level of the Big Ten because I believe Rutgers is there. Now that we saw that we can compete at that level for 90 minutes, we have to find a way to make the critical plays in the box.”

Michigan State returns to the pitch on Thursday, Oct. 6, traveling to Evanston, Ill. to take on Northwestern. It will be a night game under the lights starting at 8 p.m., and will be streamed on Big Ten Network Plus. The Spartans will stay on the road playing Illinois Sunday, Oct. 9. The game is slated for 2 p.m. and will be streamed on Big Ten Network Plus.

-MSU athletic communications