The Quinnipiac Bobcats’ season came to an end Friday afternoon in Fairfield, Connecticut. The Bobcats fell in the MAAC semi-finals to the defending MAAC champion Fairfield Stags on a beautiful day at Rafferty Stadium.

The scoring began in the first five minutes with Fairfield’s leading point getter Olivia Doody firing a strike past Quinnipiac goaltender Kat Henselder. The Stags were not done there, as they added on two more goals by the seven minute mark in the first quarter. The Bobcats finally responded with just under four minutes to play in the opening quarter as star first-year Mia Delmond netted the first goal of the day for Quinnipiac, eventually making the score 3-1 after the first quarter. 

Despite the Bobcats having the momentum late in the first quarter, they couldn’t continue that into the second. Fairfield scored four unanswered goals in the second quarter, led once again by two more goals and an assist from Doody. Going into the halftime break, Quinnipiac trailed Fairfield by a score of 7-1, but that wasn’t the only notable number on the stat sheet. It took the Bobcats 10 tries to win their first draw control, with the first nine draws of the game finding their way into the stick of a Fairfield Stag. 

Coming out of the break, the Bobcats battled back quickly. Emily Feeney netted her 26th goal of the season at the 12:07 mark in the third quarter. Feeney’s goal was followed up by Abby Wise finding the back of the net at the 11:58 mark, just nine seconds apart the Bobcats were back in the game making it 7-3. 

The scoring picked up rapidly with Fairfield’s Libby Rowe and Amanda Kozak scoring the next two goals of the game to make it 9-3 Fairfield. Angelina Sporacio tried to get Quinnipiac back in the game as she scored her third goal of the season, but the Bobcats couldn’t sustain their success as Rowe scored her 33rd goal of the season and second of the quarter to push the Stags lead to 10-4 under a minute left in the third quarter.

Quinnipiac’s season leader in goals, Desiree Kleberg scored her 31st goal of the season at the very end of the third quarter, cutting the Stags lead to 10-5. Both teams’ offenses showed off in the third quarter as the two teams combined for seven goals.

The fourth quarter was more of the same, with Stags leading goal scorer Elizabeth Talluto scoring an impressive goal from the right wing on an absolute laser of a shot past Henselder. After Talluto’s goal, both teams added two more goals each to give Fairfield a commanding 14-7 victory. 

Quinnipiac head coach, Tanya Kotowicz spoke on the impact of this year for the Bobcats program. 

“We’re going to be here again and we’re going to make sure we’re on the other side of this win, Kotowicz said”

Kotowicz then highlighted her team’s struggle starting off the game. 

“We started slow, so we had to find our team and it took a little too long,” Kotowicz said. 

The Stags will take on the winner of Niagara versus Siena in the MAAC championship on Sunday.