FAIRFIELD, Conn. – No. 14 Rutgers men’s lacrosse used a suffocating defensive effort to claim an 8-3 road victory at Fairfield (1-2) Saturday afternoon. The Scarlet Knights got out to a 7-1 halftime lead and held on for the five-goal victory. The team improved to 3-0 on the season in head coach Brian Brecht’s 100th career coaching victory. “I was very impressed with our defensive unit today,” head coach Brian Brecht said. “The maturity in our defense end with Chris Groel, Michael Rexrode, Alex Bronzo and Max Edelmann really helped today. They were composed and communicating well. They did a great job today, and it was great to see us generating those offensive opportunities. We have grown over the last couple of games, and we can continue to use these games to get better going into the month of March.” Rutgers held a 41-25 advantage in shots and forced the Stags into committing 20 turnovers. The Scarlet Knights were 24-of-25 on clears and edged the home team 31-30 in ground balls. Tyler Behring made 16 saves for the Stags. The defense was spearheaded by the efforts of Chris Groel (seven ground balls) and Michael Rexrode (three ground balls, two caused turnovers). Alex Bronzo also scooped three ground balls, Garrett Michaeli had three caused turnovers and two ground balls, while goalkeeper Max Edelmann made nine saves and allowed just three goals. Rutgers limited CAA Preseason Player of the Year Colin Burke to just one assist and four turnovers. Offensively, Connor Murphy led the team with three goals. Jeff George added two tallies, and Jules Heningburg, Casey Rose and Christian Scarpello scored one apiece. Scarpello also added an assist and three caused turnovers. The Scarlet Knights opened the contest with a five-goal run to take command of the game. A rocket from George, which ripped the netting off the goal, opened the lid on the scoring seven minutes in. That preceded goals from Heningburg and Murphy for a 3-0 lead after 15 minutes. George’s second of the day opened the scoring in the second quarter. That was followed by Scarpello scoring a man-down goal on a ricochet off an opposing defender for a 5-0 lead. After Fairfield’s first tally, Rutgers scored twice in the final 90 seconds of the opening half. Rose made the lead 6-1, and then Murphy scored with 3.8 seconds on the clock for a 7-1 halftime advantage. The Stags pushed back early in the third quarter, scoring twice in the first 2:31 of play. However, RU’s defense locked down from there, holding Fairfield scoreless in the final 27 minutes of action. Murphy completed his hat trick with 10 minutes remaining in the game for the 8-3 final margin.