Rutgers is headed back into the Big Ten Tournament with momentum, a No. 4 seed and a familiar opponent waiting on Wednesday morning.
The Scarlet Knights open postseason play against No. 5 seed Indiana at 11 a.m. in the quarterfinals on B1G+. It marks the first time Rutgers will begin tournament action on a Wednesday under the current format.
Rutgers arrives at 11-7 overall and 5-3 in Big Ten play, having won six of its last seven and nine of its last 12 dating back to Sept. 18.
The Scarlet Knights are playing in a conference that was ranked No. 1 by the RPI as of Monday, and Rutgers itself sits at No. 14 in the RPI. The numbers around the schedule are just as strong, with the team’s opponent success measure ranked sixth nationally.
Offensively, Rutgers has pushed across 50 goals this season, matching a mark it last hit in 2018. That 2016 squad remains the high-water mark for a Meredith Civico team with 54 goals.
Olivia Fraticelli has been the headliner. The Toms River native leads the team with 13 goals, which ranks third in the Big Ten, and her 27 points place her sixth in the league.
She has done it efficiently too, scoring 13 times on just 31 shots. Fraticelli’s 13 goals sit seventh on Rutgers’ single-season list, and her 24 career goals are tied for seventh all-time in program history.
Her 51 career points rank 21st all-time. One more goal would move her into a tie for sixth on the school’s career goals list with Mary Beth Dwyer, and two more points would put her in a tie for 14th on the all-time points chart with Austyn Cuneo.
Emily Nicholls has anchored the back end. She leads the Big Ten with 4.61 saves per game and is nine saves shy of 200 for her career.
Her biggest performance came in Rutgers’ 4-3 overtime win over No. 6 Iowa, when she turned away a career-high 16 shots and stopped a penalty stroke in overtime.
That was the most saves by a Rutgers goalkeeper in a single game since at least 2012 and the most by any Big Ten goalkeeper since 2024.
“We are thrilled to once again be back at the Big Ten Tournament, especially considering how competitive our conference has been this season,” head coach Meredith Civico said. “Indiana is an excellent team, and it was a very close game against them this past Friday.
To play them again with such a quick turnaround will be interesting - I'm sure they will do all they can to reverse the result. We will, of course, be doing all we can to win.
I am very proud of the way our team has been competing and of their belief in themselves and one another.”
Indiana comes in at 9-7 overall and 4-4 in league play, though the Hoosiers have dropped four straight in ranked matchups against No. 2 Northwestern, No.
19 Penn State, No. 1 Maryland and No.
18 Rutgers. Their season has still included some strong stretches: they were ranked for the last six weeks, climbed as high as No. 11 nationally, opened 7-3 for their best 10-game start since 2014 and won their first four Big Ten games for their best conference start since 2005.
Molly Stutte leads Indiana with 23 points, while Celia Arroyo Cabezduo shares the team lead in goals. Ines Garcia Prado has 14 points on three goals and eight assists, Mijntje Hagen has five goals, and goalkeeper Sadie Caneli owns a 0.96 goals-against average with a 75.0% save percentage.
Indiana has outscored opponents 35-18. Garcia Prado was an All-American and First Team All-Big Ten selection last season, and Hagen also earned All-Big Ten honors.
This is the second straight meeting between Rutgers and Indiana, and the Scarlet Knights already handled the Hoosiers 2-1 to close the regular season. Sophie Kuiper and Laura Loycke scored late in the first half to seal that win.
Rutgers has controlled the series overall, going 13-4-1 against Indiana. Since 2017, the Scarlet Knights have won nine of the last 11 meetings. All four of Rutgers’ losses in the series have come on the road.
The Big Ten Tournament has been a mixed bag for Rutgers over the years, but the program has become a regular fixture. The Scarlet Knights are 5-10 all-time in the event and have qualified in 11 of the 12 seasons since joining the league.
This is the third straight year Rutgers has been the No. 4 seed. In each of those 4-5 matchups, No.
1 Northwestern has awaited the winner. Last year, Rutgers fell to Michigan in the quarterfinals.
In 2024, the Scarlet Knights beat Ohio State 2-1 before losing to Northwestern 2-0. Overall, Rutgers will play in the 4-5 game for the fifth time and has been seeded fourth or better for the third time.
The lone previous tournament meeting with Indiana came in 2021, when Rutgers hosted the Big Ten Tournament and went 3-0 to win the school’s first conference title. That 3-1 victory over the Hoosiers was the 100th career win for Civico, who has since surpassed 150.
A win Wednesday would give Rutgers its sixth all-time Big Ten Tournament victory, extend its current run to seven wins in eight games, deliver its fifth ranked win of the season, send the Scarlet Knights to the semifinals for the second time in three years and fourth time in six years, and mark the sixth Big Ten win of the season for the second time in four years.
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