The Quinnipiac women’s basketball team opened up its regular season with a win on Saturday afternoon. The Bobcats pulled away with a 79-64 victory over the Army Black Knights at the TD Bank Sports Center.
Quinnipiac’s starters scored a combined 59 points in the victory.
The Bobcats also used their “gold rush” strategy with five in-and five-out substitutions. Nikoline Ostergaard led in scoring with 18 points and also tallied up eight rebounds. Samantha Guastella chipped in with 15 points, shooting 6-for-7 from the field.
Quinnipiac head coach Tricia Fabbri was pleased with how the team played, especially since it was early in the season
“We were efficient on both offense and defense,” Fabbri said. “We did a great job adjusting to what we saw on defense.”
The Bobcats held Army to a 34.5-percent field goal percentage and forced them to shoot 3-for-18 from three-point range. On offense, the Bobcats shot over 50 percent and went 6-for-15 from three.
As for the amount of substitutions, Fabbri believes that this could again be a season-long strategy.
“We are a senior-laden team with a roster full of talent, and we want to use that for a fast-paced offense,” Fabbri said.
“We can go in and play hard for a few minutes and then know that people are coming in that can play just as hard,” Guastella said.
The Bobcats took an early lead in the game thanks to Guastella’s 13 first-half points. Quinnipiac went into the locker room with a 39-31 lead.
The Bobcats didn’t look back in the second half, eventually swelling the lead to 20 points at one time. Ostergaard scored 13 points in the half, including seven from the free throw line.
Graduate transfer Val Driscoll recorded 13 points in her Quinnipiac debut. Boo Abshire and Jasmine Martin scored nine and four points, respectively.
“I just love their approach of playing, they are really focused and make great decisions on and off the court,” Fabbri said.
The Bobcats outrebounded the Black Knights 47-29 in the game, leading to 14 second-chance points.
Quinnipiac is back in action on Tuesday against non-conference opponent Hampton.
“We are testing ourselves now to see how talented we really are,” Fabbri said.
