Blue Knights Defeated in Season Opener

NEWARK, N.J. – The Mount Saint Mary College men’s basketball team was defeated by Rutgers-Newark in their season opener on the road.

Mount Saint Mary traveled down to Rutgers-Newark for their first official match of the season. Justin Rivera would record the first bucket of the season for the Knights as they trailed the Scarlet Raiders 5-3 early on. The Mount struggled to get through the Rutgers defense all day long as they shot just under 37% from the field and only hit on 2 of their 15 three-point attempts. The Scarlet Raiders went on a 10-0 run taking a 15-3 lead before Matt Monaco got the Knights back on the board. The Knights had a tough time chipping away at their deficit, but their leading scorer from last season Connor Cyran cut the Rutgers-Newark lead to eight with just under three minutes to play in the half. Mount Saint Mary was only able to get two more points from the charity stripe for the remainder of the first, as they headed into halftime down 37-21. One thing the Knights had going for themselves was their aggressiveness attacking the basket which resulted in 22 free throw attempts on the afternoon.

Coming out of the half, the Mount finally knocked down one of their three-pointers but were still unable to put together any sort of run. The Scarlet Raiders slowly added to their lead as they went up by as much as 27 in the second half. Every player for the Knights saw action in this game as Coach Ryan Kadlubowski is still feeling out his rotation. Mount Saint Mary was able to go on a 9-0 run sparked by Justin Rivera who knocked down all three of his free throw attempts after being fouled. The deficit though was too much to overcome as the Knights would end up failing to the Scarlet Raiders 77-53.