Box Score

NEWARK, N.J. – Rutgers University-Newark's Cinderella season ended in the ECAC Metro/Upstate Championship match on Alumni Field with a 7-1 loss to Stevens, but the Scarlet Raiders placed a firm cornerstone for the future of the program.
 
The second-seeded Raiders, who had scored 15 goals in the quarterfinals and semifinals of the 8-team tournament, hit the wall against a deep and physical Duck squad which flipped the script on their hosts.
 
Raider junior midfielder Sara Corson levelled the score at 1-1 in the sixth minute by chipping a shot over charging freshman goalkeeper Lindsey Mahnken after taking a long through ball from her freshman sister Emily Corson.  It extended the older Corson's Rutgers-Newark single-season record for goals to 24 and gave her seven goals in three ECAC playoff matches – but it was the end of the Raiders' good fortune for the evening.

 

Sophomore forward Raba Nassif, who opened the scoring just 1:40 into the match off of a back heel feed from junior midfielder Kristen Goncalves, put Stevens ahead for good in the 20^th minute when she pivoted to her right and fired a shot into the right side of the Raider goal from just inside the 18.
 
Tournament MVP Ann Heine then netted goals less than two and a half minutes apart to boost the Ducks' lead to 4-1 in the 36^th minute.  Nassif, who added an assist in the second half, finished the season with 18 goals while Heine posted nine markers.
 
Senior forward Georgia Johnson had a goal and an assist in the second half while freshman midfielder Sandi Komar and senior defender Stephanie Basile added tallies to help Stevens pile up a 21-8 edge in shots from the match.  The Ducks (14-7-0) took four of the six corner kicks in the contest.
 
Raider junior goalkeeper Veronika Teuros made six saves, stopping three breakaway runs and a penalty kick.
 
Corson put two of her four shots on goal to help Rutgers-Newark force Mahnken to make four saves.  Junior midfielder Cristina Estremera, sophomore defender Manuela Morales and freshman forward Haley Savva also put shots on goal for the Raiders.
 
Rutgers-Newark (14-8-2) set program records for wins in a season and best New Jersey Athletic Conference record (4-4-1) while earning its first-ever berth in the NJAC Championship Tournament.  Its two ECAC playoff victories were the first in the 15-year history of the program.