Quinnipiac won its season opener by a score of 2-1 against Big East rival Providence Friday afternoon.

After a scoreless first quarter, sophomore Olivia Howard got Quinnipiac on the board.

“We really wanted to score early to get ourselves on the board and make an impact,” Howard said. “Especially scoring first shows that we showed up to play so that’s all I was thinking was get the ball in the cage.”

Quinnipiac and Providence had a stalemate in the third leaving the score 1-0 Quinnipiac going into the fourth quarter.

Three minutes into the fourth, junior forward Niamh Gowing tied the game for the Friars.

With the game all knotted up, the Bobcats needed an answer of their own. Julianna Cappello answered the call.

The sophomore beat Providence goalkeeper Asia Porter to a loose ball, giving the Bobcats a 2-1 lead with just over five minutes to play.

From here on out the Bobcats just had to keep the ball out of their own net. That’s exactly what they did.

The Bobcats played a strong defensive game throughout, yielding just four shots on net from the Friars.

“The fact that we’ve had 21 practices, three or four weeks to get ready for this game, we had the opportunity to do a lot of intrasquad scrimmages and understand that our marking was pretty bad,” head coach Becca Main said. “It’s what we focused on and we made it very good today.”

Quinnipiac went with freshman goalkeeper Nina Santore for this one. Santore made three saves and got the win in her Bobcat debut.

“Nina has an attention to detail,” Main said. “She has the ability to read the game and asks a lot of questions.”

While Santore got the start in the opener, Main pointed out that she is confident in all three keepers on the roster.

Quinnipiac gets to ride its victory for a week, with its next matchup coming on March 13, game one of a two-game set against Villanova.