PISCATAWAY, N.J. — All Justin Pennington could do was look up at the sky and shake his head.

The Rutgers senior midfielder came into the game against Syracuse leading the Scarlet Knights with 32 points on the season. He’s third in the Big East in points and goals per game and fourth in assists per game. But Sunday, with Syracuse longstick midfielder Joel White, breathing down his neck all game, nothing came easy.

‘He is a great midfielder who just keeps getting better and better,’ White said. ‘But our defense as a whole played very well, and we had real good help defense the whole game. We just tried to make it tough for him.’

With his team yet to put the ball in the back of the net and trailing by five with five minutes to play in the third quarter, Pennington was called for holding. He walked off the field slowly, the frustration seeping out. As he shook his head he looked up to the sky in search of answers.

He took a knee on the sideline and pushed his stick into the ground.  

The Rutgers drought ended just a minute later when Andrew D’Agostino scored his first career goal to make it 6-1, Syracuse. But it took 40 minutes and 42 seconds.

‘That is a great accomplishment,’ said White, who had three caused turnovers. ‘Any time you hold a team to zero goals, it doesn’t matter who the team is, that is a step in the right direction.’

Though Pennington ended up with two goals, the Rutgers offense could get nothing going against the defensive pressure of White, John Lade, Matt Tierney and Brian Megill.  

Lade, Tierney and Megill — all New Jersey natives — pushed the Scarlet Knights out close to midfield. Anytime they tried to penetrate the defense, they were met with a forearm or two.  

Though the Syracuse offense was slow to get started, the defense had no problem picking up the slack.  

‘We just try to play good defense because we know our offense is going to get going,’ White said.  ‘We just looked to hold it down until they get started up.’

Megill led the team with four caused turnovers and was all over the field. Tierney used his big 6-foot-4 frame to outmuscle an equally large counterpart Rutgers’ attack Kory Kelly. And Lade followed around a quick Tad Stanwick, who tried to slither his body in front of the net from behind the goal but was not able to get past Lade.   

‘I think it was another great defensive effort,’ said SU head coach John Desko. ‘Especially in the first half.’

When there was a rare breakdown, there was John Galloway in net.  He finished the day with seven saves.

With two minutes to play in the first quarter and the score knotted at zero, it appeared as if Rutgers would get on the scoreboard first.  Working from behind the net Stanwick snuck past Lade and stood on the doorstep on the right side.  He unleashed a shot, but Galloway jumped up to make a stick save.

‘A couple cracks they might have found, Galloway was there,’ Desko said. ‘I think he was four saves on four shots in the first half.  So there was no breakdown on the defensive end of the field.’

And the SU defensive effort even helped fuel the offense. Chris Daniello wasn’t worried even though his team struggled to score. Despite a 20-minute drought, SU found themselves up by two at the half.

‘They kept them scoreless, and they just played phenomenally tonight,’ Daniello said. ‘They played solid defense.’  

But the defense is far from satisfied.  After letting up five goals in the second half, White was quick to focus on the ‘slip-ups.’

Said White: ‘We played real well, but there were some things in the second half that we need to work on.’

restern@syr.edu