By: Nick Cataldi
Follow @NickCataldi19
If you don’t shoot, you don’t score.
That was Quinnipiac head coach Eric Da Costa’s message after his teams 1-0 loss to Fordham on Saturday at the QU Soccer Turf Complex.
“We didn’t create enough chances to win the game today,” Da Costa said.
The Bobcats’ biggest problem was generating offense. They only had four shots throughout the entire game.
Yet, captain James Doig is not worried about the lack of offensive chances.
“I wouldn’t say it’s time to worry yet. I think we should focus more on stopping the team from scoring,” Doig said.
Another problem that hampered the Bobcats in creating chances was Fordham’s defensive play. Goalkeeper Rashid Nuhu, the reigning Atlantic 10 Tournament MVP, led the backline and stymied the Bobcats offense all game long.
“They’re hard to breakdown and very structured,” Doig said. “Second half we gave everything at them. We still were not able to break them down.”
In the first half, the teams were feeling each other out. There were no quality chances during the first 45 minutes, as it was mostly just both teams keeping possession. Then in the second half, the Bobcats controlled possession but neither team created many quality chances.
But that all changed in the 68th minute.
Fordham midfielder Ross Wilcox played a through ball to Janos Loebe, who played the ball past a charging Chris Iakovidis and into the back of the net. The play all started with a bad a pass from Doig in the midfield.
“It’s my fault,” Doig said. “I played a lazy, tired pass to the midfield. That’s totally on me.”
The Quinnipiac forwards also proved troublesome. Rashawn Dally was the only forward up top as Eamon Whalen was out injured and did not dress.
“Forwards are there to score goals and if they are not producing then we are going to continue to struggle,” Da Costa said.
Doig was honest with himself and his team in that they are not playing to their potential. The Bobcats are not scoring the ball and are not winning games.
“It’s hard to stand in front of you and say we are playing well,” Doig said. “It’s extremely frustrating to train and put in a performance like that in the second half and not get any result.”
“I think we only put one shot on target,” Da Costa said. “It’s about creating chances and today I don’t think we created one really good scoring chance, that we could sit there and say we couldn’t of done better.”
As the non-conference schedule comes to an end, Quinnipiac has six days off before it will play its third nationally ranked opponent of the year.
The University of New Hampshire comes to Hamden next Saturday for a 2 p.m. kickoff.
