The Quinnipiac Bobcats’ season came to an end Thursday night in Burlington, Vermont. The Bobcats fell 3-2 in overtime to the No. 8 ranked Vermont Catamounts on a cold, windy night at Virtue Field.

The scoring got started early with Vermont’s leading goal scorer Max Murray adding to his tally, scoring his eighth goal of the season in the fifth minute to give the Catamounts the 1-0 lead. After multiple scoring chances and physical play for both teams, the Bobcats got on the scoreboard. A perfectly placed ball from Alexander Stjernegaard to Brage Aasen set up the equalizer for the Bobcats to make the score 1-1 in the 41st minute. That remained the score at the half. 

Both teams came to play in the second half, fighting for a chance to face SMU in the second round of the NCAA tournament. The first goal of the second half came in the 73rd minute. Tomas Svecula was fouled inside the penalty box by Ymir Mar Geirsson of Vermont, resulting in a penalty kick. Svecula sent the ball in the back of the net with a powerful shot in the low right corner that got past the Vermont goalkeeper Nate Silveira. 

Svecula’s goal made it 2-1 in favor of Quinnipiac but the scoring was not done just yet. Just two minutes later a beautiful corner kick from the leg of Vermont’s Yaniv Bazini set up the America East Conference first team member Noah Egan for the Catamounts second goal of the game making it 2-2. The score remained even throughout the final 15 minutes of the second half.

The game was sent to overtime, with two 10-minute overtime periods to decide the winner. The first eight minutes of overtime led to no real opportunities for the offenses, but the final two minutes led to the Catamounts putting extreme pressure on the defense of Quinnipiac. Despite these opportunities, the Catamounts could not capitalize in the first overtime period. 

Jumping all the way to the final minute of this one, Alex Nagys left footed shot found the net to give the Catamounts the lead and eventually the 3-2 win. 

Quinnipiac head coach Eric Da Costa was happy with his team’s effort. 

“Really proud of the effort that they put in, not today but the entirety of the season,” Da Costa said.  “There’s a lot to be proud of bringing two championships home and made it to the NCAA tournament and put on a really good performance.” 

Da Costa also said that his team this year set a “new standard” for Quinnipiac soccer and talked about the future of this team. 

“We brought a really strong rookie class in this year,” said Da Costa. “We want to continue to move forward and people want to come here to play because of the way we play and the manner we play.”

The University of Vermont Catamounts will take on SMU in Dallas, Texas on Sunday at 8 p.m.