On Sunday afternoon, the Quinnipiac Bobcats defeated the Iona Gaels 1-0 in the MAAC quarterfinals.
This was the second time in eight days that these two teams would be squaring off with Quinnipiac winning the last matchup 2-1.
“Always hard to beat a team twice in such proximity. It’s never easy,” head coach Dave Clarke said. “We’re Iona’s cup final every year, so we also had to deal with that.”
The first half did not see much action as the Bobcats controlled the majority of play but had no goals to show for it, struggling to create chances.
The Gaels were inches away from getting on the board following a free kick, as midfielder Krystal Haertter got to the ball and put it past Bobcats graduate goaltender Sofia Lospinoso, but senior defender Madison Mandleur was able to get back and make a diving goal-line clearance seconds before the ball crossed the line to keep the game scoreless.
Despite there being no goals, this was a very physically played first half with lots of hard contact between the two teams, showing that it was playoff time.
“Dave kind of instilled in us to keep the emotion at a low. This team in itself, that’s what they bring. That’s kind of what they ride on,” junior midfielder Madison Alves said. “So it was super important for us to keep it at a minimum and just do what we know how to do, keep our composure.”
The second half saw more action as in the 54th minute, senior midfielder Aisling Spillane opened the scoring for the Bobcats. Sophomore defender Bianca D’Onofrio put a cross into the box and after bouncing around for a little bit, it finally fell to graduate forward Courtney Chochol who passed it off to Spillane who buried it for the 1-0 lead.
“The first half, we saw that we had all the possession, and that can be hard, like when you have all the possession and you’re not getting any rewards from it,” Spillane said. “But we knew what we had to do, and just stuck with it, And yeah, I’m glad that I got the goal for the team.”
Later on in the half, Iona forward Kedarjah Lewis found space and sprung away, but Alves was able to track back and make a sliding tackle that halted the momentum.
The game was turned on its head a bit when in the 79th minute, the referee went to the instant replay and decided to hand Iona’s Myla Rodrigues a red card for a previous foul. This made things a lot tougher for the Gaels to complete a comeback.
With five seconds remaining in the game, Iona’s Marissa Graziano’s last ditch free kick effort from about 30 yards out floated up and above everyone in the box and out of play as the final seconds ticked down, clinching a victory for the Bobcats.
The Bobcats, who have shutouts in their previous five MAAC playoff contests, will be back in action on Thursday, Nov. 7, when they take on No. 3 Canisius at 1:00 p.m. in the semi-finals.
