Nobody around the Rutgers women’s soccer team wants to say it out loud, but they all know.

The stars may be about to align over the next three weeks.

The Scarlet Knights are ranked 22nd nationally and fourth in the Big Ten standings with two games to go – one at second-place Michigan, one at last-place Michigan State. If they stay put, they will host the first round of the conference tournament on Nov. 3 in Piscataway. Yurcak Field is then the pre-determined host of the conference semifinals and final this fall. If this current surge continues – Rutgers is 5-0-1 in its last six contests – the Scarlet Knights may be able to win the university’s first Big Ten title at home.

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That is all a long way off. But it is certainly possible for a program that has come an even longer way over the last 35 years. The women honored at halftime of Sunday’s rain-soaked win over Indiana served as a reminder as Rutgers honored its first-ever women’s soccer team, and its remarkable road to becoming a varsity program.

They came from Maui and San Diego, Maine and right around the corner. The reunion was put together with just a few weeks notice, and yet all but one living member of the team was in attendance. Rutgers’ women’s soccer team has become one of its most successful athletics teams, but there was amazingly a time where it was just a “motley crew” club team, carpooling to beat sponsored varsity teams on the road while being slighted at home.

“We were good, and we knew we were good,” Liz Pellerin, one of the stars of that first team in 1984, said. “We were beating varsity teams. We knew we should be getting the same support these other teams did.”

So they decided to do something about it. After playing Penn one weekend, the Rutgers club team attended a tailgate organized by the host team’s parents. They urged Pellerin and her teammates to fight for varsity status. Pellerin’s dad suggested the team start petitions. Another player, Maureen Shamy, had experience with pushing for greater access through Title IX when she was in high school. The campaign then began.

The team started getting petitions signed, setting up tables on campus. Students and parents rallied their support. The club also secretly began consulting men’s head coach Bob Reasso. “He gave us some advice on the side, confidentially,” Pellerin said. “He didn’t want to get in trouble.”

Pellerin and Shamy were eventually invited to the Barn to meet with then-athletics director and newly-inducted Rutgers Hall of Famer Fred Gruninger.

“We gave him the petitions, we showed him how many people think we should have the team. We had made it past the minimum amount required years you had to be a club first (the club was in its eighth year). And we told him about our winning record,” Pellerin said. “And he said, ‘OK, well, there are other women’s sports here at Rutgers that have a ball. Why can’t you play something else?’

“And I said, ‘Well, we’re good, and we think we deserve a team.’”

Pellerin and Shamy then made it clear to Gruninger they understood their Title IX rights, but he remained unmoved. They left the meeting believing they may need to seek legal support, but the late Rita Kay Thomas, Rutgers’ senior assistant athletics director at the time, stepped in and provided guidance from that point forward. The persistence paid off, as Rutgers eventually granted the club varsity status. That meant the team received uniforms and a trainer, as well as a bus take them to away games, although the driver got lost one time going to Cornell and turned a seven-hour round trip into a 12-hour debacle.

The team also was given its first head coach. Pellerin and Shamy were asked. to interview three finalists. They landed on Charlie Duccilli, an assistant with the men’s team. He went on to become the winningest coach in program history and led the Scarlet Knights to a Big East title, the only conference championship in program history.

The exact date of the first game has been lost to time. But it was played where Yurcak Field stands today, albeit on a pitch running north-south instead of east-west if you peered out on it from the current day press box. Kean was the visiting team, and it was pouring like it was this past weekend. There were no bleachers, so everyone stood shoulder to shoulder. The crowd included university president Edward J. Bloustein and the entire men’s team, fresh off a training trip in Europe. Inspired by the fan chants they heard overseas, they began to replicate them to cheer the women’s team on, an experience that Pellerin said was “awe-inspiring.”

“It gave me goosebumps,” she said. “They had our backs.”

Pellerin scored the first goal off a header. Rutgers and Kean battled to a 2-all draw by the end of the day. The Scarlet Knights went 10-4-2 that season, finishing the year ranked 13th nationally.

Three-and-a-half decades later, what they started could soon lead to one of the biggest moments in Rutgers athletic history.

“We would have gotten a team eventually,” Pellerin said. “But the fact we had such adversity and it wasn’t welcomed initially, I have so much pride in what the girls are doing today, especially with this movement of equal pay. Thirty-five years ago, it was worse, and we’ve come a long way. It’s powerful to see them do so well.”

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James Kratch may be reached at jkratch@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JamesKratch. Find NJ.com Rutgers Football on Facebook.