The Quinnipiac men’s soccer team lost 2-1 at home to undefeated UMass Lowell on Saturday afternoon.

“We’re making individual mistakes.” head coach Eric Da Costa said. “It’s not clean enough offensively, and we need to clean it up, and our players are good enough to do that. It was just a little bit of a slow start in terms of our possession.”

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The two sides played a scoreless first half. UMass had control of the ball for the majority of the first half and outshot Quinnipiac 3-2.

In the second half, UMass Lowell drew first blood when freshman midfielder Joe Kellett played the ball to senior midfielder/forward Wuilito Fernandes who headed it past Quinnipiac’s fully-stretched senior goalkeeper Brian Westerman with 37:41 to go in the game.

Fernandes struck again a little over 13 minutes later on a pair of great passes from freshman Ivan Blaskic and redshirt freshman Ivan Abramovic with 24:36 left in the game.

Quinnipiac was able cut the two-goal lead in half when senior forward Ryan Scheiderman scored on a pass from junior midfielder Max Rothenbuecher with 17:11 to go. The goal was Scheiderman’s first of the season after finishing last season tied for the team lead with two.

Tempers began to flare towards the end of the game when Bobcat junior midfielder Shaquille Huggins and UMass senior midfielder Carlos Ruiz collided. Both men were trying to fight for possession when their legs got tangled up. Neither one was injured, but the two exchanged words and both Huggins and Ruiz had to be held back by their teammates. Both players received yellow cards from the referee with just 1:39 to go.

Despite its efforts, Quinnipiac failed to capture an equalizer and snapped its two-game winning streak.

Even though Quinnipiac lost, Da Costa’s hopes for the team are still high.

“We’re seeing a young team continue to grow, and getting a bit more experience,” he said. “You only gain experience by playing and making mistakes.”
The Bobcats (2-3) will play the last game of their three-game homestand on Wednesday at 4:30 against Yale. The Bobcats are 2-3-2 in the last seven matchups with the Bulldogs. Each of the past five contests have been one-goal games. Yale (0-0-1) won last season’s matchup 3-2 and Quinnipiac won its last home matchup in 2014, when Raphael Carvalho scored the game’s lone goal in overtime.