On Wednesday afternoon, the Quinnipiac Bobcats took down the Marist Red Foxes by a final score of 3-0, extending the Bobcats winning and clean sheet streak to eight games.
“They don’t want to give it up and there’s something to be said for that,” said head coach Dave Clarke. “You can’t coach that, and to have that in a team, it is very difficult.”
It looked like the Bobcats’ shutout streak would end in the 11th minute when junior midfielder Olivia Lindsay got onto the end of a long ball, but shortly after the ball fell into the back of the net, the whistle blew for offsides.
Five minutes later, the Bobcats were able to open the scoring as sophomore defender Bianca D’Onofrio took the ball down the right sideline and fired a pass into the middle that graduate forward Courtney Chochol was able to poke into the back of the net.
“Getting the first goal early, it puts teams down,” said senior midfielder Rachel Roman. “If you get the first goal, they really can’t come back from that.”
Six minutes after that, senior midfielder Aisling Spillane found the back of the net as she followed up a rebound from an Ella Gagno shot and placed her shot into the top corner.
“I scored a goal against Rider and that gave me my confidence,” said Spillane. “I finally scored with my boot.”
Later on in the half, after a bit of chaos in the Red Foxes’ 18-yard box, a loose ball fell to Roman on the goal line who had to push it three inches further to get it into the back of the net for a 3-0 Bobcats lead.
This concluded a 19-minute stretch that saw the Bobcats score all three goals.
The second half was more back and forth as both teams got a few scoring chances but ultimately were never able to find the back of the net. Graduate goalkeeper Sofia Lospinoso had the biggest highlight of the half, as she made a sprawling save on a Kelsey Peduto shot attempt to preserve the shutout. This was one of Lospinoso’s four saves to clinch her seventh shutout of the season.
This was a physical contest between conference rivals as five yellow cards were handed out in this one.
In their next matchup, the Bobcats will be taking on the Canisius Golden Griffins who currently sit first in the MAAC and hold a four game shutout streak of their own.
The game between the MAAC’s top two teams will be played in Buffalo on Saturday at 12 p.m.
