HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. — Rutgers once again found itself in a seesaw game, 15 minutes away from the program’s promised land at Shuart Stadium.
There had to be at least an inkling of memories from last year’s overtime loss to North Carolina on the same field in the NCAA quarterfinals. But far more attention was fixed on the opportunity at hand Saturday.
“Tommy Coyne came in the huddle, and said, ‘We’ve been here before. It’s tied up, and if we win the quarter, we win the game,’” long stick midfielder Ethan Rall recalled about an hour later. “We knew it was our time to go on a run.”
The sixth-seeded Scarlet Knights capitalized on a burst in the final 10 minutes, pulling away for an 11-9 defeat of third-seeded Penn to reach the NCAA semifinals for the first time in program history. Rutgers (15-3) will meet either seventh-seeded Cornell or unseeded Delaware in East Hartford, Conn., next Saturday.
Colin Kirst made 12 of his 18 saves in the second half, Shane Knobloch scored three times and defensive midfielder Cole Daninger had a career-high three assists for Rutgers, which uncorked a celebration decades in the making after Kirst heaved the ball skyward in the closing seconds.
“It’s crazy to see the progression,” Daninger said. “Freshman year, coming in and I think we were 7-8. Now, senior year, we’re really rolling, and it’s just great to see it come together.”
Penn (11-5) fell in the quarterfinals for the second time in four years. The Quakers, whose only trip to the semifinals came in 1988, got four goals and an assist from Dylan Gergar. The senior finished with 52 goals, joining former teammate Adam Goldner (56 goals in 2019) as the only players in school history with 50-goal seasons.
Still, Penn shot just 9 of 46 and leaned on its settled defense to keep it in the game.
“We were just kind of waiting for our offense to get going, to be frank,” coach Mike Murphy said. “In the first half, we labored through some things and the ball wasn’t moving as quickly as we wanted.”
Even with those struggles, it was 6-6 entering the fourth quarter, and the Quakers took their first lead with a pair of goals while monopolizing possession for the first five minutes of the period. But after a Kirst save, Rutgers cleared and called a timeout that settled things and set up a 5-0 run.
Knobloch scored off a Mitch Bartolo feed out of the timeout, and Bartolo tied it 24 seconds later after Ross Scott zipped him a pass. And with that, Rutgers wouldn’t trail again.
“I think we kind of just kept saying we needed to get the ball,” Knobloch said. “The defense got the stop, we got the ball and we got rolling.”
The go-ahead goal stemmed from Rutgers’ great advantage throughout the afternoon. Daninger, already with two assists, found Dante Kulas for a transition goal with 5:38 to go.
“That’s us,” Daninger said. “We like to run-and-gun. We like to play early offense.”