With last season’s loss to the Marist Red Foxes in the 2014 MAAC Championship in the back of their minds, the Quinnipiac Bobcats earned their seventh straight victory after defeating Marist 73-55 on Thursday night.

The win gives Quinnipiac an overall record of 17-3 (9-0 MAAC), and puts them two games ahead of both Iona and Marist for fist place in the conference. The loss drops the Red Foxes to 11-7 (7-2 MAAC).

The Bobcats got off to a fast start in the first half, outscoring the Red Foxes 45-19 heading into the locker room, making it one of the best performances in a half by the Bobcats this season.

During halftime, Quinnipiac head coach Tricia Fabbri reminded her team of last season’s title game and how their big lead then was lost.

“I told them to not come out of the locker room and not expect another charge from Marist,” Fabbri said.

Quinnipiac continued to shoot well from the floor early in the second half, but Marist would gain some momentum after playing strong defense, forcing Quinnipiac to take poor shots.

Led by Tori Jarosz’s 16 points and 13 from Madeline Blais, Marist began their comeback in the middle of the second half, but the deficit was too large for Brian Giorgis’ squad to overcome.

“If I was going to lose this game, this is exactly the way I wanted to lose it,” Giorgis said. “We have a problem of competing and it’s because they think they are the other Marist teams and that this would just come to them. That first half was as poor as what I have seen in 12 years, but that second half team could compete with anyone.”

Coming into Thursday’s contest, Marist led all MAAC teams in free throw-percentage (76%), opponents points-per-game (58.9) and committing the fewest turnovers per game (12.1). But the Red Foxes did not show all three of these categories on the court.

Marist shot 50% (7-14) from the free-throw line, allowed 73 points and committed a season-high 21 turnovers.

“The real thing that was uncharacteristic of us was the 21 turnovers,” Giorgis said.

Senior Nikoline Ostergaard led Quinnipiac with 14 points, five rebounds, and five assists. Grad student Val Driscoll also contributed 12 points and nine rebounds for the Bobcats.

Using the Gold Rush, which is substituting five players in and five out at a time, Quinnipiac’s bench outscored Marist 30-10 in the game. The Bobcats earned big points from several players on the bench, including nine points apiece from junior Maria Napolitano and freshman Sarah Shewan.

Fabbri was pleased with the team’s overall performance.

“I’m really happy for these young ladies and my coaches,” Fabbri said.

“This is something that we haven’t done in beating Marist and to be able to do it today in that fashion was really pleasing to me and they get to enjoy a big win.”

Quinnipiac successfully won the game from both ends of the floor and as Fabbri said, the Bobcats continued to play the game going by the same strategy for every game.

“We treated this just like another game for us,” said Fabbri.

“I really love how we go about our business in prep, film, and scouting. We have done well with just focusing on one opponent at a time and that’s starts with our senior leadership.”

Despite picking up the win over Marist, one of the seniors, Gillian “Boo” Abshire knows that there is still more work to be done.

“We are nowhere near where we want to be yet,” said Abshire.

Quinnipiac will look for it’s season-high eighth straight win as they begin a three-game road trip in New York, NY against Manhattan College.