The Boston College Eagles defeated the Quinnipiac men’s soccer team by a score of 2-0 on a warm afternoon at the QU Soccer Field on Friday.

The Bobcats looked to step up their physical style of play to compete against the No. 11 nationally-ranked Eagles in their season opener. Quinnipiac had multiple scoring opportunities early on in front of the net from forwards Rashawn Dally and Eamon Whelan, but couldn’t put the ball in the net.

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“We were just really focused on ourselves in the first half,” Quinnipiac head coach Eric Da Costa said. “We’ve always put ourselves in positions to play really good teams and showed some serious promise today.”

While the Bobcats’ offense struggled to score, freshman goalkeeper Chrysostomos Iakovidis kept the team’s hopes alive with an impressive half in net, stopping five Boston College shots on goal. The Eagles found a way to end the scoring drought with seven minutes remaining in the half as Maximilian Schulze-Geisthovel netted a goal off a pass from teammate Isaac Normesinu as the Eagles took a 1-0 lead into the break.

“There aren’t too many other sports where you can play that caliber of a team and compete the way we did,” Da Costa said.

The action-packed second half started off with a quick goal from Boston College’s Raphael Salama off an assist from Mohammed Moro. Although the Bobcats got off five shots in the second half, they ultimately fell to the Eagles 2-0. The Bobcats will travel to Louisville, Kentucky next to take on University of Louisville at 7:30 p.m. on Monday night.

“We’re exactly where we should be,” Da Costa said. “We’re in a position where we are trying to improve and get better, and I thought we had some more offensive production in this game than we did in a lot of games last year.”