Rutgers Forwards Don’t Register a Shot on Target in 1-0 Loss to No. 21 UC Santa Barbara

PISCATAWAY, N.J. — Rutgers put four shots on goal Sunday night. Two came from a fullback, one from a center back and one from a central midfielder. No Rutgers forward hit the target, and only one of them took a shot at all. Kaden Standish scored in the 70th minute and No. 21 UC Santa Barbara left Yurcak Field with a 1-0 win in front of 231, the third match of Rutgers’ five-game homestand and the third time in five matches the Scarlet Knights have failed to score.

The Scarlet Knights arrived at 1-2-1 with five goals in four matches, four of them in a single night against Sacred Heart. Two of the other three matches ended without one. Friday’s loss to Seton Hall was the sharpest version of the problem: 14 shots, six on target, all six saved by Devin Armstrong, and a 1-0 defeat decided by a 48th-minute penalty. A week earlier the issue had been accuracy, with 11 of 15 attempts missing the frame. Rutgers fixed the aim and the scoreline didn’t move.

The Gauchos came in at 1-1-2 and ranked 21st, on the second leg of a three-game road trip that started 3,000 miles from Harder Stadium. Cornell beat them 2-1 on Friday night in Ithaca on Connor Miller’s 87th-minute winner, the second straight season the Big Red have taken UC Santa Barbara down late. The shot count in that match ran 20-4 to Cornell, 6-2 on goal, with all 12 corners going the same way. UC Santa Barbara scored anyway, thanks to Steinar Bjornsson from 25 yards in the 68th, off Donovan Sessoms. Bjornsson also scored the goal that earned a 1-1 draw against No. 2 San Diego on Aug. 31. The 2006 national champions have been out-played for long stretches of this season and have taken points from three of four matches.

Rutgers has out-shot nearly everyone and taken points from two.

GK: Rafael Ponce de Leon
D: Simon Gorczowski, Devon Stopek, Nick Collins, Hector Criado, Braxton Montgomery
M: Pius Ssebulime, Zach Mastrodimos, William Pierce, Francesco Di Ponzio
F: Andrew Kitch
Subs: Charlie Kitch, Dan Karsten, Thomas Angelone, Dylan Carlson, Joshua Jerome, Jeffrey Bryjak, Erick Ruiz, Abubakar Mayanja, Noah Hannawald

McElderry held the eleven for one match. He didn’t hold it for two. Jeffrey Bryjak, Amer Lukovic and Dan Karsten all dropped out of the side that lost to Seton Hall, and Hector Criado, Braxton Montgomery and William Pierce came in. September has now produced a 5-3-2 at American, a 4-4-2 at Georgetown, one change in the home opener, an unchanged XI against Seton Hall and this new lineup against UC Santa Barbara.

McElderry used every substitute he had. Nineteen changes across 90 minutes, four of them in a single stoppage at 33:52 and three more at each of 45:00, 73:12 and 81:31. Only Rafael Ponce de Leon, Simon Gorczowski, Devon Stopek and Nick Collins played the full match, the same four-man spine that went 90 against Seton Hall with Pius Ssebulime in place of Gorczowski. Ssebulime came off in the 34th minute this time, came back on at the interval, and came off again at 81:31.

The pattern is now three matches old. Against Seton Hall it was five at once in the 31st and five more in the 56th. Against UC Santa Barbara it was four in the 34th and three at the break, and by the time Jeffrey Bryjak came on at 81:31 he was the ninth Rutgers substitute to enter. Charlie Kitch played 20 minutes and was booked in the 67th. Thomas Angelone played 20 minutes across two spells and was booked in the 40th.

Dan Karsten, dropped from the starting eleven, played 56 minutes and did not take a shot.

The first half ended the way the last one did. Three shots each. Rutgers won two early corners inside the opening five minutes and did nothing with either, and by the quarter-hour the match had settled into throw-ins.

Andrew Kitch lasted eight minutes.

Joshua Jerome replaced him at 8:06, and the only forward in McElderry’s starting eleven was off the field before the game found a rhythm. Kitch did not return.

Nick Collins put the first shot on target in the 21st, low to Owen Beninga’s left. William Pierce went to the same corner in the 25th and Beninga saved that one too. Calle Mollerberg had missed the frame for the Gauchos in the 15th, and Steinar Bjornsson missed it in the 24th before finally forcing Rafael Ponce de Leon into a save low and central in the 30th. Two saves for Beninga, one for Ponce de Leon, and not a shot between them that either goalkeeper had to move for.

Then McElderry changed four at once again. At 33:52 Abubakar Mayanja, Dan Karsten, Thomas Angelone and Erick Ruiz came on for Pius Ssebulime, Pierce, Jerome and Braxton Montgomery, the third straight match with a mass substitution and the earliest of the three. Ssebulime, one of four Scarlet Knights to play all 90 against Seton Hall, was off before the 34th minute. Jerome came on for Kitch and lasted 25 minutes. Karsten, left out of the eleven entirely, was back on the field before the interval. Tim Vom Steeg had gotten there first. Jack Middleton came off in the 17th, Colby Renton and Kaden Standish in the 27th with Standish already booked, and Donovan Sessoms in the 33rd. Four of the Gauchos’ starting eleven were gone by the time Rutgers made its move.

Francesco Di Ponzio missed the target in the 39th. Angelone was booked at 39:21, six minutes after arriving, and gave away another free kick 71 seconds later. Zach Mastrodimos was booked at 44:20.

The half ended goalless with four corners for Rutgers and two for the Gauchos at Yurcak Field, and with Rutgers having put two shots on frame in 45 minutes against a team that has been out-shot 20-4 and still won a point off the No. 2 side in the country.

McElderry changed three more at the interval. Ssebulime, William Pierce and Joshua Jerome came on for Abubakar Mayanja, Zach Mastrodimos and Angelone, and for 15 minutes it looked like the right call. Jerome missed the frame in the 48th and again in the 52nd. Rutgers won corners in the 52nd and 53rd. Gorczowski forced Owen Beninga into a save from the edge in the 54th, low and central, and Ssebulime missed the target six seconds later off the rebound.

Four shots in nine minutes. None of them in. That was the last of it.

Rutgers did not put another attempt on target for the remaining 36 minutes.

Steinar Bjornsson drew a save from Ponce de Leon in the 60th, low to his left. Gorczowski hit the target again at 61:19 and a UC Santa Barbara defender got in the way, credited as a team save. Ssebulime was booked at 56:38 for his third foul in five minutes. Charlie Kitch came on at 61:22 and was booked at 66:12.

The officials initiated a VAR review for a UC Santa Barbara penalty at 65:27. No penalty was taken. Nick Collins was booked in the 68th, Rutgers’ fifth yellow card of the night.

Then Tim Vom Steeg brought Kaden Standish back on.

Standish had been booked in the 19th minute and substituted off in the 27th, one of four Gaucho starters gone before the half. He returned at 66:12 with Colby Renton and Jakob Methvin. Three minutes and 28 seconds later he finished off his right foot into the top right corner, assisted by Ty Branigan and Kalle Rahbek, and the match was decided by the only shot on target either team managed in the second half’s final half hour.

Rutgers responded with three more substitutions at 73:12 and three more at 81:31. Mayanja missed the frame in the 85th. Devon Stopek missed it in the 90th. Beninga finished with three saves and did not concede a corner after the 65th minute, though Rutgers took eight of them across the match to the Gauchos’ two.

The Scarlet Knights out-shot a ranked opponent, out-cornered it four to one, and lost by the same scoreline they lost by on Friday. Ponce de Leon made two saves and let in the only one that beat him.

The homestand runs two more matches with defending Big Ten tournament champion UCLA for the conference opener on Friday and Princeton on Sept. 15.

Rutgers has now been shut out in three of five matches and has scored five goals, four of them in one night against a team that has since lost twice. The Scarlet Knights out-shot UC Santa Barbara 10-7 and won the corners 8-2, and the four shots they put on goal came from two defenders and a midfielder. The shooting is not the problem it was in August. UCLA is four days away and it won’t be taking eight corners to find one.