HAMDEN — Moments to remember have defined Quinnipiac women’s ice hockey’s stellar season, but the No. 6 Bobcats’ 5-0 loss to No. 4/5 Colgate Friday was definitely a moment to forget.

It would be impossible to attribute Quinnipiac’s loss to any one thing — everything that could have gone wrong for the Bobcats went wrong in spectacular fashion. 

“I think, clearly, the game didn’t go the way we wanted it to,” head coach Cass Turner said. “But I think we learned a lot about who we are today.”

Despite having the No. 4-ranked scoring offense in the country, the Bobcats failed to put a point on the scoreboard for the first time since Dec. 31, 2022. 

Quinnipiac’s offensive momentum — something that has characterized its season — was noticeably absent. At one point, the Bobcats went 12 minutes without a shot attempt and 15 minutes without an on-target shot. 

With just 19 shots on goal in the beatdown, the Bobcats have recorded fewer on-target shots in only three games this season — one of them being their 3-1 loss to Colgate last November. 

Of course, Colgate has the No. 3-ranked scoring defense, allowing an average of just 1.33 goals per game. But it was more than that. The Bobcats weren’t simply outmatched by the Raiders; after all, the two top-10 teams came into Friday’s game with near-identical records. But Quinnipiac’s energy shifted after a terrifying first-period injury.

About midway through the frame, sophomore forward Emerson Jarvis got tripped up in front of the Quinnipiac net and collided hard with the boards. She lay relatively motionless for several minutes as a swarm of trainers attended to her, and emergency medical personnel eventually stretchered her off the ice on a spine board. 

“We never want to see anyone go down,” Turner said. “Unfortunately, it’s a part of the game, and as hard as it is you need to adjust and be ready to go.”

Whatever momentum the Bobcats had prior to Jarvis’ scary-looking injury seemed to dissolve when she hit the boards, and their early — but reversible — struggles only continued to snowball as the game progressed.

Offensive woes may have dug Quinnipiac’s grave on Friday, but it was defensive miscues and poorly timed penalties that nailed the coffin shut. 

Quinnipiac’s defensive zone play already ranged from disorganized to downright sloppy at even strength, with the lack of on-ice cohesion often putting graduate student goaltender Logan Angers on the receiving end of ugly turnovers.

Case in point, Colgate’s first two goals — one from freshman forward Madeline Palumbo in the first period, the other from senior forward Kalty Kaltounkova in the second — came when the Raiders caught the Bobcats flat-footed.

But even with the No. 10-ranked penalty kill, Quinnipiac’s defensive disorganization only worsened when facing Colgate’s No. 1-ranked power play.

This came to matter when the Bobcats, already down 2-0, effectively spent the final six minutes of the second period and the first three minutes of the third period killing a string of consecutive penalties.

It started with a tripping call on Quinnipiac freshman forward Kahlen Lamarche about three-quarters of the way through the second frame. 

Three seconds after the penalty expired, Raiders graduate student forward Dara Greig racked the puck top shelf to put Colgate up by three.

The moment play resumed at center ice, officials called a holding penalty on Bobcats graduate student forward Sadie Peart.

With only seconds left on Peart’s penalty and under two minutes remaining in the period, junior forward Maya Labad crunched a Raider into the boards. 

Colgate challenged the minor penalty call — and won. This left the Bobcats, who had already spent the vast majority of the last four minutes on the kill, with a five-minute major penalty to survive. 

The Bobcats managed to kill the first two minutes of the penalty and escape the second period unscathed.

And yet, Raiders sophomore forward Elyssa Biederman increased Colgate’s lead to four less than 90 seconds into the third period — and the Bobcats still had another 90 seconds to kill off Labad’s penalty.

Technically, they did kill those 90 seconds off.

But five seconds after the Bobcats finally returned to even strength, Raiders graduate student forward Danielle Serdachny put a fifth and final goal on the board for Colgate.

“I think that we really need to be able to have more discipline to stay out of the penalty box,” Turner said. “It could have been a very different game.”

By the final buzzer, the Bobcats looked visibly defeated. So much had gone wrong, and seemingly nothing had gone right. 

“I couldn’t be more proud of our effort, though,” Turner said. “We kept fighting.”

Amid a season to remember, Jan. 19 was a night to forget.

“Short memory,” Turner said, as she often does after losses.

Quinnipiac looks to rebound from the shutout with a matchup against No. 8 Cornell on Saturday. Puck drops at 3 p.m.