By: Josh Silverman

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The Quinnipiac Field Hockey team came into Friday afternoon’s contest having dropped its last three Big East conference games.  More importantly, the team no longer controls its destiny.

When winless Temple came to Hamden, Quinnipiac knew it had to take care of business. And that’s exactly what it did, beating Temple 1-0 and getting back on track.

In previous games Quinnipiac lacked some control of the ball and featured some sloppiness in its game. However today was a complete turnaround.

The Bobcats looked crisper and got contributions from the entire team.

“I thought we really showed up today,” Bobcats’ head coach Becca Main said. “We showed up for the entire game. There was a focus and there was an intensity.”

Showing up for the entire game had been one of Quinnipiac’s struggles, as it had lost its last five games by a total of six goals.

“70 minutes, 100 percent,” Main said on her team’s ability to compete the whole time.

Though the Bobcats’ offense had trouble putting points on the board, the lone goal was enough to get by Temple. Quinnipiac’s goal came courtesy of sophomore Marisa Larkin, the first of her career.

“I’ve been working on it for a while now so its one of my goals almost every game,” Larkin said. “It feels really great to finally have accomplished it.

The win was a team victory and perhaps no play was more evident of that than in the second half when Temple had an open look at Quinnipiac goalie Livy Golini.

Golini came out to meet her foe head on and when Temple’s forward escaped Golini, Quinnipiac defender Kiera Godusky was there to bail out her goaltender. The play epitomized what it means to play, and win, as a team.

“When that happens it’s a huge team effort,” Golini said. “Everyone is in it together and that just shows how united we are. When I come out Kiera knows to go behind me. When Kiera steps out she knows I’m ready for a shot. That just shows how much trust we have with each other.”

Coming into the game, Quinnipiac had to contain Temple’s top scorer Rachael Mueller. There were times Muller had opportunities to make plays, but Quinnipiac prevented her from finding the back of the net.

“She is a really good player. She is someone we had to key in on a little bit,” Main said. “What was nice was this was one of the games where we saw a team come in and try to beat us. Rachael is a really good player and it’s exciting to see her play but I thought we did a good job neutralizing her.

Though the Bobcats got the win Friday, there is still plenty they can improve on.

One of those aspects is their penalty corner, something they struggled with once again. The Bobcats weren’t able to convert on any of their 10 penalty corners.

“What we did today was we had a completely different set and then we had to go back to the ‘oldie but goodies’ a little bit at the end,” Main said. “We took a lot of corners and didn’t put a lot in so that’s obviously going to need to be a focus this week.”

Quinnipiac will have a week to prepare for its biggest matchup of the year, a home game against UConn next Friday.

However before that, it will travel to play Lafayette on Monday.
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