Buckeyes Close Regular Season at Rutgers Thursday
4/19/2023 11:49:26 AM | Women's Lacrosse
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The Basics
- The Ohio State women’s lacrosse team wraps up the regular season slate at Rutgers Thursday evening.
- The teams will meet at SHI Stadium in Piscataway, N.J., at 6 p.m.
- The game will be televised by BTN and streamed through the Fox Sports app. Live statistics will be available through OhioStateBuckeyes.com.
- The Buckeyes enter the game 5-10 on the year (0-5 B1G) and Rutgers is 6-7 (0-5 B1G).
Buckeyes vs. Scarlet Knights
- The Buckeyes trail the series with Rutgers, 5-8 overall and 4-6 since the start of B1G play.
- The teams also met last year to wrap up the regular season. In that contest, Ohio State fell 10-8 April 28, 2022 in Ohio Stadium, with Rutgers rallying in the fourth quarter for the victory.
- The teams met in Piscataway three times in 2021. Rutgers won all three contests, posting 12-9 and 10-9 wins Feb. 26 and 28, 2021, in the regular season and then prevailing in a Big Ten Tournament quarterfinal matchup, 19-13, April 29, 2021.
- The Scarlet Knights are 6-7 this year and 0-5 in the Big Ten. The team won two nonconference games last week, defeating No. 6 Stony Brook 12-7 at home before a 15-7 win at Vermont Saturday.
- The RU squad is scoring 9.77 goals a game and allowing 10.69 an outing. The squad is 16th nationally with 9.77 caused turnovers a game, led by Meghan Ball who is first nationally with 3.69 per contest. Ball is 11th in the country in ground balls per game (3.23).
Buckeye This and That
- The Buckeyes are averaging 10.07 goals a game and giving up 12.13 per outing.
- Ohio State has faced three of the Top 4 teams in the current IWLCA rankings – No. 2 Northwestern, No. 3 Denver and No. 4 James Madison. The Buckeyes also took on No. 12 Maryland, No. 14 Penn State, No. 18 Michigan, No. 20 USC and No. 22 Johns Hopkins. Rutgers, this week’s opponent, is receiving votes in the most recent poll.
- Junior Jamie Lasda leads the Buckeyes with 29 assists and 54 points and is second with 25 goals. It is the most assists for a Buckeye since Rainey Hodgson had 31 in 2016.
- Lasda had a career-high eight points against Northwestern last Saturday, with four goals and four assists. She is third in the Big Ten with 1.93 assists per game and fifth in the league with 3.60 points per outing. Lasda has three or more points in 10 of the last 11 games and at least one point in all but one game this year. She reached the 100-point mark for her Buckeye career in the game vs. the Wildcats. In 40 games at OSU, Lasda has 62 goals and 42 assists for 104 points.
- Junior Regan Alexander, with 14 starts and 15 games played, has a career-best 147 saves, with 10-plus in nine outings. Alexander had 130 saves last season in her first year as the starter. She notched a career-best 15 saves against Marquette April 4 and matched that mark Saturday vs. Northwestern. She is sixth nationally in saves and 16th in saves per game (9.87).
- Alexander has a team-best and career-high 38 ground balls, including a career-high 11 vs. Johns Hopkins, the second-most in a game in the NCAA this season. She is also first on the team with 14 caused turnovers.
- Senior Nicole Ferrara is first on the squad with 37 goals and second with 47 points. She reached the 100-goal mark for her career at Marquette April 4. The 37 goals are a career best, passing the 31 scored last season, when she added 21 assists for a career-best 52 points. Ferrara is on a team-high 10-game point streak and was held scoreless just one time this season (Feb. 25 vs. Denver).
- Senior Caly O’Brien had her fourth two-goal game of the season Saturday. She has a career-best 13 goals this season, passing her high of nine set in 2022.
- Sarah Johnson, Ava Keethler and Emily Magalotti have started all 15 games on defense for the Buckeyes. Magalotti is second on the team with 26 ground balls this season and Johnson is third with 23. Magalotti and Keethler are tied for second on the team with 12 caused turnovers each. Bryce Pfundstein has eight starts on defense and has nine caused turnovers.
- O’Brien leads the Buckeyes with 41 draw controls after recording 10 in her first 38 games in the Scarlet and Gray. Lasda is second with 35 after posting nine her first two years. Jamie Level is third with 33 and has two collegiate seasons with 50+ draw controls.
- Three freshmen have started for the Buckeyes this season. Casey Roberts started the first 15 games, Zoe Coleman has 13 starts and Katie Kaucheck has been in the starting lineup in 10 outings.
- Coleman has a point in 10 of 15 games, with three multiple-point outings. She has a 10-4-14 line this year.
- Roberts has tallied 14 goals and four assists for 18 points and has a point in 10 of 15 games, with a goal in nine outings.
- Chloë Johnson, who missed the first seven games and had limited playing when she returned to the lineup, has 20 draw controls this season. She is in second place in Ohio State history with 234 draw controls, as she passed Katie Chase who had 221 from 2012-15. Molly Wood holds the program record with 237 from 2015-18. Johnson set the Buckeye record with 124 last season, the first Ohio State player with more than 100 draw controls in a season.=
The Schedule Ahead
- The Big Ten Tournament starts next weekend with quarterfinal games. The No. 1 seed receives a bye, with Nos. 2-4 hosting Nos. 5-7 April 29. Ohio State will be on the road for the quarterfinal round.
- Ohio State will then host the Big Ten Tournament semifinals and final. The semis are set for 6 and 8 p.m. May 4 and the final will be played at 8 p.m. May 6. Ticket information will be coming soon.
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