BALTIMORE — As Rutgers rolled into its locker room at Loyola’s Ridley Athletic Complex two hours before Saturday’s game, there were no jerseys to be found.

At first, attackman Ross Scott and the Scarlet Knights figured it was part of a made-for-the-social-media-age fashion reveal. Instead, Rutgers’ threads were left behind in Piscataway and were being rushed down the New Jersey Turnpike even as they waited out the rare uniform delay.

“We came in and were like, ‘Oh, they’re probably messing with us, and we probably have new jerseys coming, and with these brand-new Adidas jerseys and we’re all going to freak out,’” Scott said. “Then 25 minutes in, we’re like, ‘Maybe we don’t have jerseys here,’ and we started to joke around about how these are things you can’t control. We still have a plan and we’re going to go out. We handled it really well, and we got a lot of energy out of it.”

Enough, it turned out, to rally past Loyola 13-12 in Rutgers’ tightest game of the season to date. Scott scored four goals, and Shane Knobloch added three for the Scarlet Knights (5-0), who scored five goals in a row to erase the Greyhounds’ 11-8 lead.

Adam Poitras had four goals, and Aidan Olmstead added two goals and five assists for Loyola, which is 0-3 for the first time since 2005.

“If that’s the No. 6 team in the country, we’re not that far away,” Loyola coach Charley Toomey said. “We have to fix a few things and keep our heads up. The only way to get this taste out of our mouths is to take the field again Wednesday [against Towson].”

The Scarlet Knights had trailed for a total of 100 seconds in their first four games, and even that was in the first quarter of a February 9 game against Marist. The only team to have seriously pushed them into the second half was Army, which was tied with Rutgers in the middle of the third quarter last weekend before yielding a four-goal burst.

Loyola had some spurts of its own, scoring twice in the opening 77 seconds and later adding a three-goal run in the second quarter to secure a 7-6 halftime lead. Kevin Lindley, Olmstead and Poitras scored in a span of two minutes in the third quarter to extend the advantage to 11-8.

It was a test for Rutgers’ reworked offensive personnel, which thanks to graduation and midfielder David Sprock’s season-ending injury are still getting accustomed to each other. Knobloch completed his hat trick, and Ronan Jacoby deposited a goal to close the margin to 11-10, and Scott scored three times in two minutes as Rutgers seized the lead.

Only two of Rutgers’ goals were assisted on the day.

“I always felt defensively that rule No. 1 was not to get beat by a dodger, and I look down at the stat sheet and we give up 13 and they have two assisted goals,” Toomey said. “It’s hard to say we’re giving anyone in the goal a chance when they’re on top of the crease or coming down an alley and we’re just not sliding.”

Still, it was hard not to be impressed with the Scarlet Knights’ offensive potential. Knobloch, last year’s Big Ten freshman of the year, is ably handling the added attention that comes with Sprock’s absence. Mitch Bartolo, a Penn transfer, had two goals and an assist and is an obvious asset on attack. And Scott, after spending last year at midfield, is blossoming in a full-time starting role.

Rutgers also handled playing with the lead well, and goalie Colin Kirst made four of his 10 saves in the fourth quarter.

“We want to be playing our best lacrosse at the end of May, not the end of February,” coach Brian Brecht said. “But having these games under our belt early, having these experiences, getting challenged like we did today, going down early, coming back to tie it, going back down and maybe having to produce and make decisions when you’re in tight situations when you’re up at the end of the game.”

Toomey said he thought it was the Greyhounds’ sharpest performance after dropping games at Maryland (20-8) and Johns Hopkins (11-10) to open the year. And Loyola did create some problems for a Rutgers defense filled with veterans.

The most lasting development might be how the latest turn of the Greyhound goalie carousel unfolded. Sophomore Luke Staudt made five saves in a little more than 40 minutes of work, and senior Sam Shafer — the starter during Loyola’s late-season run last year and in the season opener two weeks ago — stopped six shots in the final 19:52 while allowing four goals.

“It’s no secret: It’s the third game, and we’ve started three goalies,” Toomey said. “We’ve tried to just challenge those guys to step up, and to be quite honest with you, I left that locker room and thought Sam deserved the start against Towson. We’ve been waiting for him to step up and grab this moment. I thought he went in and played with incredible energy, enough energy to allow us to win a game. We just couldn’t get it done.”

Rutgers did, even if its wardrobe issues led to an unusual day. The game started 75 minutes later than expected, and the Scarlet Knights were clad in black (as planned) while claiming their first victory over the Greyhounds since 2007 and their first ever at Loyola.

“Obstacles happen,” Brecht said. “We talked about this earlier in the week, maybe not for this situation. Control the controllable. We talked about things going on in different parts of the world and the weather and things of that nature, but I guess waiting for the jerseys to come, you can’t control that.”