After losing Thursday’s game against Northeastern University, the Quinnipiac field hockey team returned home Sunday and defeated the Colgate University Raiders, 2-1, in a thrilling come-from-behind victory, which snapped a three-game losing streak.

After 30 minutes of scoreless field hockey, Colgate delivered the first goal when Adrianna Libutti scored off a loose ball in front of the cage to give the Raiders an early 1-0 lead.

However, it was all the offense Colgate could create, as they were limited to only 3 shots in the first half and were unable to make a shot for the rest of the game.

Senior captain Tina Watkins found Cuniff outside the circle on a corner and Cuniff struck the ball past Colgate goalkeeper Kirsten Lalli for the goal.

“We moved Kimberly in the second half, she’s able to score from 70-80 yards out, and can score often,” Quinnipiac head coach Becca Kohli said. “We made our midfielders take more of the workload and moved our forwards far away; let the ball come to them. We made them wear down in the second half and it worked, it opened up an incredible number of breakaways for us.”

The Bobcats put plenty of pressure on the Raiders’ defense in the second half as they recorded 11 of their 16 shots on goal in the second half.

Watkins ignited the Bobcats’ offense in the second half when she scored the team’s first goal and tied the game at 1 at the 53:20 mark.

Katie Van Nostrand found Watkins on a corner at the right post of the goal, taking it into the opposite corner of the net to tie the game up. It was Watkin’s first goal of the season as well as Van Nostrand’s first assist this season.

Junior Kimberly Cunniff provided the heroics for the Bobcats with her first goal of the season with just under ten minutes left, putting the Bobcats ahead 2-1.

This was Quinnipiac’s first matchup against Colgate since October 2000.

“I think coming into this game we were giving up a lot of corners, and I still think we gave up too many corners to them today, but we’ve been averaging around 12-13 so we’re pretty good at understanding how to play defense,” Kohli said. “We made some key adjustments today, put some people in different places and they responded nicely.”

The win improved the Bobcats’ record to 2-3, while Colgate dropped down to 1-4.

The Bobcats visit to Ann Arbor, Mich. this Friday to take on Albany, then Michigan on Sunday.

Photo credit: Jim Casey