The Quinnipiac women’s soccer team came into Sunday’s game against Holy Cross winless, riding a four-game losing streak. An unlikley player found her little-used offensive skills to lead the Bobcats to end the slide.
Defensive midfielder Beck Kiting scored the game’s only goal in the 78th minute to give the Bobcats their first victory, 1-0, at Quinnipiac Soccer Field.
“It was important to break the streak,” Quinnipiac head coach Dave Clarke said. “We have been in this position the last couple of years where we haven’t started well results wise. It was probably our worst performance of the season and we won.”
After a foul, Quinnipiac goalkeeper Jill Kelley took a free kick in midfield. With several players from both teams positioning for the ball, the ball bounced around in the box and found its way to Kiting, who buried it in the left corner of the net.
“It was a bouncing ball in the box,” Kiting said. “I tried to get on the end of it and see what happened.”
Kelley stopped three shots to earn her first shutout of the season.
“Now we have had a shutout, a win and we broke the streak,” Clarke said.
Including a 4-2 loss to Lehigh on Friday, the Bobcats (1-4-1) were outscored 8-2 in the last four games. Kiting said the team was still frustrated after Friday’s loss.
“It feels great, trying to get our first win of the season,” said Kiting, who had two goals last year. “We were pretty disappointed with our performance on Friday and we are happy to get the win today.”
Carly McCabe stopped three shots for the Crusaders (2-5).
Each team had scoring opportunities, but Kelley and McCabe prevented either team from capitalizing in the first half.
Holy Cross had a scoring chance develop in the 25th minute when Danielle Wasserman’s shot from the top of the box was saved by Kelley. Kelley made a game saving play deflecting the ball with her outstretched fingertips over the cross bar and out of play.
Junior forward Shuana Edwards’ header off of a cross from senior midfielder Furtuna Velaj was denied by McCabe in the 30th minute, as she made a sprawling save to keep the game deadlocked early on.
Despite the loss, the Crusaders outshot the Bobcats 13-10.
The Bobcats return to the field when they travel to Sacred Heart for their first Northeast Conference game of the year on Friday. The Bobcats do not return home until Oct. 7 against Robert Morris.
