WASHINGTON, DC —Rutgers stayed in the district for the hardest game on its nonconference schedule and walked out of Shaw Field with a consolation and a lesson. No. 5 Georgetown won 2-1 on Sunday night, and the Scarlet Knights did not score until the clock read 90:00.
Thursday’s opener at American ended 0-0 and could have ended worse. Moad Ezzahir put the ball into the net in the 70th minute before the goal was overturned on review, and Rafa Ponce de Leon made three saves in his Rutgers debut to keep the clean sheet. The Scarlet Knights took 13 shots and put two on target. That ratio was not going to hold up against the Hoyas.
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Georgetown opened its own season Thursday with a 1-1 draw against North Carolina at Shaw Field. Both teams arrived on three days’ rest and without a win. That is where the similarity ended. The Hoyas were ranked fifth in the preseason poll and were the unanimous Big East coaches’ pick to win the East Division. They are also the same program Rutgers beat 4-0 in a preseason exhibition on Aug. 8, a result neither bench treated as meaningful.
Lineup
G.K.: Rafa Ponce de Leon
D: Simon Gorczowski, Dan Stopek, Nick Collins, Jeffrey Bryjak
M: Pius Ssebulime, Zach Mastrodimos, William Pierce, Amer Lukovic
F: Andrew Kitch, Dan Karsten
Subs: Erick Ruiz, Thomas Angelone, Joshua Jerome, Braxton Montgomery, Francesco Di Ponzio
McElderry made one change to the XI that started at American, and it changed the shape of the team. William Pierce came in for Braxton Montgomery, taking Rutgers from the back five he used in the opener to a 4-4-2, with Pierce and Amer Lukovic wide of Pius Ssebulime and Zach Mastrodimos and the same front pair of Andrew Kitch and Dan Karsten. Ponce de Leon started in goal behind a back four of Gorczowski, Stopek, Collins and Bryjak.
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The substitution log had one unique quirk as Collins went off for Erick Ruiz in the 31st minute and returned less than a minute later in place of Gorczowski, finishing with 44 minutes in the first half.
A Half Spent Defending
After the first half began, it was Rutgers that had the first real chance of the night. Dan Karsten forced Charlie DeMarco into a save low and central in the fifth minute, seconds after the Scarlet Knights won the opening corner, but it was the only shot they would put on target in the half.
Georgetown answered immediately and didn’t stop.
Terrance Reynolds tested Rafa Ponce de Leon high to his right in the sixth, went low to the other side in the 14th, and Aidan Godinho drew a third stop in the 17th. Three saves in 12 minutes, all from a different angle, and the match was still level. The woodwork was busy at both ends. Mateo Ponce Ocampo struck the right post in the seventh off the second of two Hoya corners inside 35 seconds. William Pierce hit the same post in the 18th, the closest Rutgers came all half, and Ponce Ocampo found the crossbar in the 24th. Three shots off the paint, none of them in.
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The fourth one went. Matthew Van Horn finished low to the right in the 27th, assisted by Matthew Helfrich, and No. 5 Georgetown had the lead its first half hour deserved. Amer Lukovic answered five seconds after the restart with an effort from near midfield that sailed high, a shot the chart places well outside anything resembling a chance.
Then Brian Wiese emptied his attack. A quadruple change in the 33rd minute took off Reynolds, Ponce Ocampo, Van Horn and Godinho, the four players who had combined for seven of Georgetown’s eight shots, all four of its shots on goal and the goal itself. Rutgers registered nothing after Lukovic’s blocked attempt in the 31st. The final 11 minutes produced two Rutgers throw-ins, an offside call and three Georgetown free kicks.
At the break it was 1-0, with Georgetown ahead 8-4 in shots, 4-1 on target and 4-2 on corners, and Rutgers committing seven fouls to Georgetown’s one. Ponce de Leon was the only reason the number in the left column was not larger.
Charlie Kitch Finds the Season’s First Goal, Too Late
Georgetown its starters restored at the interval and nearly doubled the lead seven seconds in. Matthew Van Horn was in on Rafa Ponce de Leon at 45:07 and the redshirt freshman saved low and central, the first of three more stops he would make on the night.
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The middle of the half belonged to Amer Lukovic. He had one blocked in the 56th and forced Charlie DeMarco into saves in the 77th and again in the 80th, low left and then high center, both off Rutgers corners. Lukovic finished with five shots and two on target, more than any player on the field in either category. Francesco Di Ponzio had another blocked in the 59th. For a stretch of 25 minutes Rutgers looked like the team that took 13 shots at American.
Ponce de Leon kept it tied at one. Eric Howard put an effort over the bar in the 65th, then Howard and Mitchell Baker forced saves in the same 71st-minute sequence, low center and low left. Simon Gorczowski was booked second later for the only card of the match.
Brian Wiese went to his bench again in the 85th, and it took Zayan Ahmed 102 seconds to settle it. The midfielder came on for Terrance Reynolds at 84:36 and finished low to the right at 86:18, assisted by Mitchell Baker, for a 2-0 lead that had been coming since the opening minute of the half.
Rutgers answered on the last play of the game. A throw-in at 89:26 became a corner at 89:50, and Charlie Kitch struck low center at 90:00 for the first Rutgers goal of the 2026 season. Kitch had come on in the 71st minute as one of six substitutions Rutgers made at once, and he took one shot in 19 minutes. Georgetown restarted and the whistle went.
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Rutgers took five shots in the second half to four in the first and put three on target after managing one before the break. In front of 1,197 at Shaw Field, it was 2-1, and the number that mattered was the one in the clock column next to the only goal Rutgers has scored this year.
Rutgers returns to the Banks for a five-game homestand that opens against Sacred Heart on Friday and runs through Seton Hall on Sept. 4, UC Santa Barbara on Labor Day, the Big Ten opener against defending conference tournament champion UCLA on Sept. 11 and Princeton on Sept. 15. McElderry’s side leaves DC at 0-1-1 with one goal in 180 minutes and a defense that has now faced 21 shots in two matches. Five straight at home is the last stretch of schedule that offers any margin before UCLA arrives, and it starts Friday.
