A Rutgers program that saw the bubble burst on its NCAA tournament hopes the last two seasons got a much-needed victory with a 14-10 win over its old Big East rival Syracuse before a record crowd of 5,048 fans at High Point Solutions Stadium.

The two schools played annually from 1979 through 2012, but had not played since Syracuse dominated the Scarlet Knights 19-6 in 2012 and then left the Big East to move to the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Before Sunday, Rutgers had not beaten Syracuse since doing it back-to-back years in 2003 and 2004 that helped fuel NCAA tournament berths for the Scarlet Knights.

Coincidentally, Rutgers has not been back to the NCAA tournament since 2004.

"It's a big win for our alumni, a big win for our program over one of the most tradition rich programs in our sport, and to be able to do this at home in front of our fans," said Rutgers head coach Brian Brecht. "I thought the offense really grew up today to help us win a big game. This is great momentum heading into the second half of the season with one last non-conference game left before Big Ten play."

If Rutgers is going to back to the tournament, it's going to need to do some damage when its Big Ten schedule starts in two weeks, but the victory was its second of the season, and week, over a team currently ranked in the USILA Top 20 in a 5-2 start.

Syracuse, coming off a blowout loss to Johns Hopkins, took an 8-7 lead late in the third quarter on Sunday after back-to-back goals by Nate Solomon. But then the wheels came off.

Rutgers seven straight goals, three of them in the final 3:08 of the third quarter, and led 14-8 before Syracuse finally found the back of the net twice in the last 80 seconds of the game.

"Today we lost our composure a little bit," said Syracuse head coach John Desko. "They jumped on us in a real hurry and scored four or five goals in a row before we really even had the ball back. We can't play that way. We have to value our possessions and take some pressure off our defense, and we have to be patient offensively for our younger guys to grow within the offense."

Great day 'On the Banks'! Look back at the #RUMLax win over Syracuse: pic.twitter.com/LNnIpzvQOU

— Rutgers Men's LAX (@RUmlax) March 18, 2018

Jules Heningburg scored four of his game-high six goals during the decisive second half run and had an assist on another of the goals. The senior, who had the game-winning goal in Wednesday's 8-7 victory over Lehigh, finished the game with eight points and went over 100 goals for his career with 102. His six goals and eight points tied career highs.

Christian Mazzone added three goals for Rutgers in the victory and Max Edelmann made 10 saves.

Brendan Bomberry led the Orange with a hat trick and Dom Madonna made 10 saves.

Cold Shooting Dooms UMBC in Loss to Stony Brook

PHOTO BY JOHN STROHSACKER

A cold shooting effort from UMBC helped Stony Brook post a 7-6 victory over the Retrievers in both team's America East season-opener on Sunday afternoon.

Stony Brook cashed in two extra-man scores in the first half to lead 4-2, and then closed the third quarter with three straight goals to take a 7-3 lead into the final quarter.

UMBC scored three times in the opening five minutes of the fourth quarter, but after pulling to within 7-6 with 10:03 to play on Steven Zichelli's goal, UMBC got off just four shots over the final 10 minutes and put only one of them on cage.

UMBC outshot Stony Brook 37-22 in the game, but put just 12 of those 37 shots on net, allowing Stony Brook goalie Michael Bollinger to need only six saves to earn the win.

Jack Walsh, who opened the scoring in the game with an extra-man goal for the Seawolves, had two goals, as did Stony Brook's Wayne White.

Billy Nolan led the Retrievers offense with four points on three goals and an assist. Jake Brothers (8-of-13) and Danny Isaac (4-of-4) combined to win 12-of-17 faceoffs in the game for UMBC.

Guterding Leads Duke Past Cleveland State

Playing his second game in two days didn't seem to affect Duke senior attackman Justin Guterding. Guterding poured in five goals to lead Duke to a 9-3 victory at Cleveland State on Sunday, a game that began less than 24 hours after Duke's 10-8 victory at Towson ended on Saturday.

Duke jumped out to an early 3-0 lead on the Vikings, but Nick Wendel's goal with just five seconds left in the first half trimmed the Blue Devils lead to 4-3 at the break.

Duke's defense blanked Cleveland State in the second half, and Guterding scored four of the Blue Devils five goals in the half to bring home the victory.

Peter Conley had a pair of goals for Duke and Danny Fowler made six saves while allowing just three goals.

Cleveland State goalie Stephen Russo made 17 saves, Danny Tesler won 10-of-16 faceoffs and Michael Wilson had two goals.