By: Chris Dacey
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The Quinnipiac men’s lacrosse team lost to Brown last season by a score 20-9 in Providence.
This year in Hamden, the Bobcats defeated the No. 17 ranked Bears in a thrilling overtime win by a score of 12-11.
It was Mike Fletcher that put the game away for the Bobcats almost immediately after overtime started.
“It was really just my teammates,” Fletcher said. “They really created the off-ball movement that got me open.”
The overtime goal was Fletcher’s fourth of the game, which capped off the upset for the Bobcats.
“I’m so proud of the guys,” head coach Eric Fekete said. “It was such a heartbreaking lost last weekend and we said in that locker room that is such an array of emotions from disappointment and despair a week ago to the top of the mountain.”
The disappointment Feteke is talking about was the game last week, another overtime game, a loss to UMass Lowell in which the Bobcats fell apart in the fourth quarter, allowing the River Hawks to comeback from being down by five goals.
However, the win did not seem it would come easy, especially early on.
Brown put in four unanswered goals to start the game to shock Quinnipiac. After the start of the second quarter it looked to be as if the game would be similar to last year’s. But the Bobcats kept on fighting.
“They scored goals and we didn’t let it rattle us and we just kept on going at them and we got the goal at the end,” Fletcher said.
That goal at the end also got the Bobcats something other than just a tally in the win column. As Fekete said after the game, every time a player on his team scores four goals he gets them ice cream. If you are counting at home this is the second straight game coach has to buy ice cream for his team.
“You guys are killing me.”
That’s all Fekete had to say to Fletcher and his squad after they made sure they were getting their reward.
The ice cream comes after a tough week for the Bobcats. Last week not only did Quinnipiac lose in overtime but Fekete was very critical of his team afterwards saying that they just needed to be better all around.
“I criticized their abilities to be good leaders last week, but those guys really nailed everything down this week,” Feteke said. “We spent a lot of time trying to figure out who we were and I give all the credit to the guys.”
The Bobcats have some time to enjoy this one as their next game is not until next Saturday against another American East opponent, University of Vermont.
The highs of a big win like this one can ride with a team into the next game, but Quinnipiac knows it needs to put its head down and get back to work soon.
“It’s hitting the reset button. We came off the low last weekend and we just got to get back to work,” Fekete said. “We have tomorrow off and come back on Monday cause we have a good Vermont team coming here next weekend.”
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