The Quinnipiac Bobcats (5-8, 1-0 MAAC) came into today looking to win their third consecutive game. They squared off against the Old Dominion Lady Monarchs (7-6, 1-1 Big East) who are coming off back-to-back losses. Old Dominion would defeat the Bobcats 3-1.
It was purely a defensive battle for the majority of the first half, and there weren’t a lot of scoring chances. Old Dominion had a few nice individual attacks from Sarah Breen and Danielle Grega, but Quinnipiac’s senior goalkeeper Megan Conaboy turned them away. Aside from a penalty corner in favor of the Monarchs, the offensive action was limited until there were 12 minutes to go in the half.
The Monarchs streaked up the field and crossed the ball to Teisha King who whiffed on the wide-open scoring chance. Quinnipiac breathed a sigh of relief, but a minute later Breen scored off of a penalty corner for Old Dominion.
Quinnipiac continued to struggle keeping the ball out of their end for the rest of the first half, and conceded another penalty corner to Old Dominion. Sarah Breen capitalized again for the Monarchs and ended the first half with a two goal lead.
Despite not registering a shot on net in the first half, the Bobcats came out of the gate strong and opened the second half with two penalty corners. After a scrum in the circle the Bobcats flipped the ball wide of the net, wasting their chances. A couple minutes later, the Bobcats were back in attack-mode and earned two more corners. They botched the first attempt, but found the back of the net on the second. Junior forward Savanna Reilly scored off of a direct pass from senior defender Megan Osanitsch to cut the deficit in half.
Following the goal, Quinnipiac was able to control the tempo and kept Old Dominion in the defensive end. Old Dominion continued to hand Quinnipiac chances, but the Bobcats were unable to finish them.
In the latter part of the second half both teams were getting chippy, and the Monarchs saw two cards flashed their way. The cards didn’t stop them from being aggressive though, and they charged down the field with 11 minutes to play and were rewarded with a series of corners. The Bobcats were able to shrug away two of them to keep it a 2-1 game.
A few minutes later, Old Dominion was attacking again and almost put one past Conaboy, but Osanitsch made a beautiful play on the ball and cleared it to the sidelines. However, the Monarchs weren’t going away and after a flurry of shots, Bobcats head coach Becca Main called a timeout.
The timeout didn’t slow down Old Dominion, as they continued to press and eventually earned a penalty shot. Emily Harting tucked it away past the diving Conaboy to extend the lead to 3-1 with less than five minutes to play.
Quinnipiac tried to put together a few final runs but were unable to do so. Quinnipiac will look to rebound from this 3-1 loss next Sunday, when they travel to Bryant to resume conference play.
