By: Josh Silverman
The Quinnipiac Bobcats field hockey team entered Friday’s matchup in Hamden against the Villanova Wildcats searching for their third conference win of the season.
That magical third win would essentially guarantee Quinnipiac a spot in the coveted Big East Tournament come November.
Instead Quinnipiac fell flat, losing to Villanova 2-1.
The Wildcat’s goalie, Erika Miller, had an answer for everything Quinnipiac threw at her. After surrendering seven goals in their first two conference games, Miller stopped 11 of Quinnipiac’s 12 shots on goal.
Quinnipiac’s head coach Becca Main had nothing but praise and respect for the player that countered her team’s attacks.
“They have a really strong goalkeeper and we knew that,” Main said. “That isn’t something new for us. They had a good (Defensive Penalty Corner) unit, nothing new for us. We just didn’t find the way to put it in so it’s just very disappointing.”
Miller’s performance coupled with her team’s feisty defense wreaked havoc for Quinnipiac. It just couldn’t match Villanova’s intensity, and Main attributes that to her team falling behind.
“I would say in the first half we did not come out ready for that intensity,” Main said. “It’s just like any conference game, there’s added intensity and Villanova brought it. They brought a unified effort, they brought intensity, they stepped to the balls and beat us to the balls.”
As much trouble as the Bobcats had scoring, it made what the Wildcats were able to do on offense look routine.
Though Villanova didn’t get shots off often, it was precise and exactly where the shots needed to be. The Wildcats scored twice on only two shots, something that will definitely give the Bobcats fits after their struggles today.
To make matters worse, the Bobcats penalty corner unit was equally as ineffective.
Their lone goal came off a penalty corner, but that statistic is deceiving. Quinnipiac had nine other opportunities to put points on the board and weren’t able to come away with any.
Quinnipiac likes to get the ball to defender Lauren Belskie on its penalty corners, however Villanova didn’t let anything get by them.
“We looked at a couple different people to put the corner in,” Main said. “Not just relying on one person and you need someone to have their day and nobody had their day today. I thought that person that had their day was their goalkeeper.”
The stats and the play were there from the home team. All it needed was one shot to take a different bounce and the game would have gone into overtime. Instead, Quinnipiac will have to deal with the fact that not every game will go the way you want.
“I think it was just one of those games where we couldn’t get our way,” forward Montana Fleming said. “We prepared a lot for corners and it just didn’t seem to work out today.”
After the game Main kept echoing the same word to summarize her team’s miscues: frustrating.
“Frustration and that’s really disappointing that we got to see the frustration today,” Main said. “I think when you want something bad enough, we knew coming in if you win this game you’re 3-0 in the Big East and you’re really controlling your own destiny. Now we’re in the mix with everyone else.”
Quinnipiac will look to rebound in Big East play when it travels to take on Providence next Friday. But first, a road trip to Pennsylvania is in store as it travels to play Bucknell on Sunday.
