PHILADELPHIA – Coming off one of the most remarkable seasons in the history of the program, the University of Pennsylvania men's soccer team hosts Rutgers Thursday in the first round of the 2022 NCAA Championship.
 
The winner of Thursday's match will travel to three-seed Syracuse for the second round on Sunday.
 
PENN (12-2-2) vs. RUTGERS (10-4-6)
NCAA Championship First Round
Thursday, November 17, 2022 | 7:00 p.m.
Dunning-Cohen Champions Field (Penn Park) | Philadelphia
Watch on ESPN+ | Live Stats | Tickets | History
 
The Penn-Rutgers Series
*The Quakers and Scarlet Knights have met 18 times with Penn holding a narrow 9-8-1 edge, though Rutgers is 6-1-1 in the last eight matches dating back to 2000, including a 1-0 win in Piscataway last September.
 
* Thursday will be the first postseason meeting in the series.
 
Penn in the NCAA Championship
*The Quakers are making their 11th NCAA appearance and are hosting a first-round game for the first time since 2002, a match they won 1-0 in overtime against Seton Hall.
 
*This is Penn's first NCAA appearance under head coach Brian Gill, though Gill is no stranger to NCAA appearances, having made it five times during his seven seasons as a Georgetown assistant from 2010-2016.
 
All Ivy
Penn put seven players on this season's All-Ivy team, matching the totals of the 2010 and 2013 teams, each of whom made NCAAs. Stas Korzeniowski and Leo Burney swept the Offensive and Defensive Player of the Year awards while Gill was a unanimous selection for Coach of the Year. Isaac McGinnis joined Korzeniowski and Burney on the first team. Nick Christoffersen, Ben Stitz, and Jack Rosener were all second team selections; Ben Do was an honorable mention selection
 
Penn Men's Soccer by the Numbers
.692 and .710 • Gill is 8-3-2 against teams from New Jersey in his tenure as Penn head coach, good for a .692 win percentage, including a 4-0-0 mark this season. In addition, Penn is 19-6-6 at home under Gill, a .710 win percentage.
 
.750 • Penn finished the regular season with a team goals-against average of .750, 13th in the nation and the only Ivy team ranked in the top 40.
 
.812 • Penn's win percentage this season, the highest for the program in 49 years; the 1973 team that also reached the NCAAs finished with an identical .812 win percentage.
 
1 • Matches this season that an opponent recorded more shots on goal than Penn. An October 18 Philly Soccer Six match against Drexel that resulted in a 1-1 draw ended with six shots on goal for the Dragons and four for the Quakers. Including two additional matches where Penn matched its opponent's total in on-target attempts, the Red and Blue finished 13 matches with more shots on goal.
 
1.3 • Penn was one of just five schools with multiple players averaging 1.3 points per match (Korzeniowski and Stitz). UMBC, Creighton, Marshall, and 2021 College Cup finalist/this year's #2 seed Washington were the other four schools.
 
2 • Times this season the Quakers conceded more than one goal. Penn knocked off fellow NCAA team Cornell 3-2 on October 15 and dropped a 3-2 match to Harvard on October 29. The Quakers allowed one goal or fewer in every other match.
 
6 • In six different matches this season, Penn held the opposition to two shots on goal or fewer. In all, the Quakers allowed just 49 on-target attempts while taking 106 of their own.
 
7 • Stitz scored in seven straight matches from September 11 to October 11, the longest streak by a Quaker since Sean O'Donnell did it in 1977.
 
8 • Penn ranked eighth in Division I in scoring offense, averaging 2.50 goals per match. One more goal would have placed them sixth.
 
9 • With a goal differential of +28, Penn finished tied for ninth among all 203 Division I teams, just one goal off cracking the top five. The Quakers were one of just two Northeast teams ranked in the top 12 (Quinnipiac).
 
10 • Korzeniowski became the first Quaker since Steven Marcinkiewicz in 1995 to score at least 10 goals in a season.
 
12 • Penn won at least 12 matches for the sixth time in program history and just the second time since 1974. Penn went 9-0-1 between mid-September and late October, the longest unbeaten streak for the program since the 2008 team opened the season 7-0-3.
 
29 • With their Offensive and Defensive Player of the Year selections, Korzeniowski and Burney were the first sophomores to win a major Ivy League year-end award in 29 years (1993).
 
40 • The Quakers scored 40 goals during the regular season, the most for the program since the 1977 team scored 42 times in another season that culminated with an appearance in the NCAAs.