HAMDEN, CT – The Bobcats found the net twice on Friday, beating the Drexel Dragons 2-1 for the team’s first win of the year.
Heading into the match, the Bobcats had been shut out in their last two matches. Quinnipiac put a whopping 13 shots on goal in their home opener against Dartmouth but failed to convert on any of them.
But they finally got going early with Drexel in town. In the fifth minute, junior defenseman Talie Lyon got the ball with a wide-open look. Lyon banked her shot off the near-side crossbar and into the net, scoring the first goal of her collegiate career and the Bobcats’ first goal this season.
“[Lyon is] actually the fastest player on the team,” head coach Dave Clarke said. “I want her to do two to three different things at once… sometimes she might be right back, sometimes she might be right midfield, sometimes she steps in at the six. She learns the game and she’ll get better at it.”
Graduate forward Lily Schnieders tacked on the Bobcats’ second goal of the game early in the second half. Senior forward Courtney Chochol caught the Dragons napping, forcing a turnover on Drexel’s side and giving Schnieders a wide-open look. The former SIUE Cougar perfectly floated her shot over Drexel keeper Molly Piso’s head and into the net for her first goal as a Bobcat.
“We instantly got that first goal… and we just kept going and going,” Schnieders said. “We really just needed that to boost our confidence.”
However, Drexel still had some fire left in the tank. In the 79th minute, the Dragons’ leading scorer Annalena O’Reilly, a graduate forward and midfielder, fired her fourth goal of the young season just past the reach of Quinnipiac keeper Sofia Lospinoso to make it a 2-1 game with 10 minutes to play.
For Lospinoso’s sake, it would be her only mistake of the game.
The senior netminder was phenomenal in goal, racking up seven saves across the game. Two of her most athletic stops came in the same minute toward the end of the first half. Lospinoso charged out of the box and stuffed a shot attempt from Drexel’s Isabel Kuzy. She then made a sliding stop on shot attempt by Laila Payton off the breakaway to close out the half.
Lospinoso talked about the trust she has with her defenders in the backfield.
“We have a pretty good relationship, me and the back four or five,” she said. “It’s like bodies on the line all the time… like ‘you’re getting the ball or I’m getting the ball’… we’re all pretty used to the dynamic.”
That ‘bodies on the line’ mentality was evident during the final minutes. Drexel had the ball on Quinnipiac’s end and put multiple shots on goal, but both Lospinoso and the defensive unit held strong to secure the victory.
The Bobcats will now look ahead to a quick turnaround on Monday at home against Stonehill College.
