Rutgers’ Big Ten Tournament run ended the same way its regular-season meeting with Indiana did: by a single goal.
On Wednesday in Columbus, the No. 14 Scarlet Knights fell 2-1 to No.
17 Indiana in the quarterfinals, a result that came after Rutgers had edged the Hoosiers in shots 6-5 but still came up short. Five days earlier at the Bauer Complex, Indiana had outshot Rutgers 10-6 and won by the same score.
This time, the teams needed just 11 minutes and 45 seconds in the third quarter to produce all three goals, and Indiana’s winner came 104 seconds after Talia Schenck tied it.
The loss closed Rutgers’ season at 11-8 and ended the careers of seven seniors.
The first half was almost entirely about movement, not finishing. Emily Nicholls started in goal for Rutgers, with Sadie Canelli in net for Indiana, and the substitutions started almost immediately.
Indiana made its first change at 2:23, Rutgers at 2:40, when Julia Vinas Nieto came on for Martha Goodridge. By the end of the first quarter, Indiana had made 18 substitutions and Rutgers 12.
The shot count matched the pace of the game: one attempt in the opening quarter. Olivia Stazi, who entered for Olivia Fraticelli at 11:58, got the lone shot away at 14:32, and Canelli made the save.
The second quarter barely changed the rhythm. Laura Loycke inserted a penalty corner at 20:26, Sophie Kuiper sent the follow-up wide 12 seconds later, and Indiana did not get its first shot until 22:56, when Molly Stutte missed wide. That was the Hoosiers’ only shot of the half.
So halftime arrived with the game scoreless, Rutgers holding a 2-1 edge in shots and Canelli having been tested once. It was a far cry from Friday, when the same teams had combined for three goals by the break. On Wednesday, they had combined for three attempts.
Indiana flipped the game quickly after halftime. Agustina Gamonal came on for Theresa Ricci at 30:59, then Mijntje Hagen fired a shot at 31:30 that Nicholls saved for her only stop of the afternoon.
Sydney Meltzer inserted at 31:35 and again at 31:44, Celia Arroyo Cabezudo hit the post at 31:52, and Gamonal finished the sequence 15 seconds later to put Indiana ahead 1-0. She had been on the field for just 68 seconds.
Rutgers answered with a burst of pressure. Kuiper’s shot at 36:43 was stopped on the line by Lily Freeman, then Loycke delivered three penalty corners in an 18-second span at 38:12, 38:19 and 38:30.
Kuiper sent the shot from the third corner high at 38:36. Rutgers then made a four-player substitution at 39:36, and at 42:02 Ella Gandy inserted a corner that Schenck finished six seconds later, with Anna Cogdell credited on the assist.
The game was tied 1-1 with 2:52 left in the third quarter.
Indiana responded right away. The Hoosiers sent on four players together at 42:08, and 1:45 later Stutte found Inés Garcia Prado, who scored at 43:52. Garcia Prado also scored Indiana’s first goal in the teams’ Friday meeting, and on Wednesday she delivered the winner.
Rutgers was level for 104 seconds.
From there, the Scarlet Knights needed one more goal, but the chances never really came. Indiana did not take another shot after its go-ahead goal.
Rutgers managed one more attempt, a blocked shot by Fraticelli at 55:56. Seven seconds later, Rutgers pulled Nicholls and put Emma Uprichard on as an extra field player at 56:03.
The Scarlet Knights played the final 3:57 with an empty net, and Indiana never put a shot toward it.
Celia Arroyo Cabezudo received a green card at 59:03. Rutgers finished the final 57 seconds with 11 field players against nine and a goalkeeper, and Gandy inserted corners at 59:46 and 59:51, but neither led to a shot before the final horn.
Rutgers finished with a 6-5 edge in shots and matched Indiana 3-3 on target, while also earning seven corners to Indiana’s two. The Hoosiers scored both of their goals within that 11-minute, 45-second stretch in the third quarter and then spent the rest of the game protecting the lead.
The result pushed Indiana to 13-5-1 all-time against Rutgers and gave the Hoosiers nine wins in the last 12 meetings. Indiana, which came in on a four-game losing streak, moves on to face No. 1 Northwestern in Friday’s 1 p.m. semifinal on BTN.
For Rutgers, the night also marked the end of the road for seven seniors honored on Senior Day against Michigan State on Oct. 18.
Schenck, the Princeton transfer and Second Team All-Big Ten selection who also won the Big Ten Sportsmanship Award, scored the final Rutgers goal of the season. Fraticelli, also Second Team All-Big Ten, took the final Rutgers shot after opening the year with four goals and a hat trick in the first weekend.
Loycke, the fifth-year whose hat trick off the bench beat UAlbany and who scored in two of the last three regular-season games, inserted four of Rutgers’ seven corners. Beattie played all 60 minutes.
Uprichard played 51 and finished the season on the field as the extra attacker. Maddie Olshemski played 12.
Madelyn Kidd did not appear.
What Rutgers carries forward is a junior core led by Nicholls, Kuiper and Stazi up front, Cogdell, and a Big Ten All-Freshman duo in Eden Doucelin and Gandy.
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