Quinnipiac men’s lacrosse has been on a steady journey up from the end of the 2025 season. Then, the Bobcats only won three games, its worst mark since 2022. Quinnipiac struggled immensely to close out tight match-ups. Both the offensive and defensive units struggled in key moments. The Bobcats failed to win a game at home all season. All symptoms of the team’s spiral.
Yet, with just two conference wins, the Bobcats found themselves in a playoff position.
“(We) kind of backed out way into the MAAC post season a little bit,” head coach Mason Poli said. “It was nice to kind of end the season with a win, especially a MAAC playoff win. Something we can build off of.”
Building a team back from the brink doesn’t happen in a day. It’s a process that extended through the long off-season, and into the 2026 campaign.
“I’m gonna compare this season to this kind of scar tissue, kind of took some battle wounds last year,” Poli said. “At the beginning of the year, we had some reminders.”
Those reminders weren’t just in the back of players’ heads. History was seeming to repeat itself in front of their eyes. In its opening month of play, Quinnipiac fell to UMass Amherst, St. John’s and Bryant, just as the squad had the prior season.
It would be easy to count the Bobcats out. After taking its first game against UMass Lowell, Quinnipiac lost seven straight contests, including five non-conference games where the squad was outscored by opponents 71-34.
Despite the struggles, Poli’s message remained the same.
“It’s early in the season. We’re not a finished product yet.”
But, even before the results began to fall in the Bobcats favor, hints of what the team was building were evident. In MAAC contests, Quinnipiac began to put together the missing pieces. Securing its first conference win over Merrimack March 25 13-10, along with two games where the Bobcats fell by just a single goal, the progress was beginning to show.
“We’ve been playing great,” junior attacker Nate Watson said. “The message was … just go out there and play.”
Rebuilding a team starts with maintaining a strong foundation, something the Bobcats have found with Watson. Last season, he led Quinnipiac in scoring with 29 goals and 45 points, in 15 games matched only by senior attacker Justin Robbert. He’s matched that pace this season, with 36 goals and 46 points in 13 games to once again top the Bobcats’ stats sheet. The New Brunswick, Canada native also leads the MAAC in goals per game (2.77). Along with the consistency from Watson, Quinnipiac has found scoring from new faces.
Junior attacker Cole Marsala has stepped up after a promising sophomore campaign to fix the Bobcats’ scoring woes, scoring 23 goals and 44 points this season. Marsala also is a familiar face near the top of the MAAC standings, ranking third in assists per game (1.62) in the conference. Recent contributions from freshman attacker Duncan Zielke and sophomore midfielder Jake Gallose have helped the Bobcats go from one of the worst goal differentials in the MAAC in 2025 (- 4.2) to one at the top half of the conference in 2026 (- 1.9).
That simple mentality of “playing our way” was what powered the Bobcats to their first ranked win since 2023, coming back after being down 9-6 to start the second half to beat No. 20 Sacred Heart.
But scoring goals and playing the Bobcat way isn’t all it takes to fully rebuild a team. Building often requires creativity and searching for solutions in unexpected places.
For the Bobcats, that unexpected place was its goalkeeper depth chart. Since his breakout campaign in 2024, graduate student goalkeeper and 2024 MAAC Defensive Player of the Year Mason Oak has held firm in his command of the Bobcat net.
But on March 7, halfway through an 11-18 loss to Siena, Poli would pull up senior goalkeeper Evan Miner to take Oak’s place between the pipes.
“Going into Siena, (I) didn’t really expect to go in, but the ball wasn’t falling the right way defensively,” Miner said. “Got called into the coach’s office, told I was going to play against Canisius.”
From then on, the Santa Monica, Calif. native has made the most of his first real chance at collegiate lacrosse. In seven starts, Miner has posted a 10.56 goals against average and a .575 save percentage, as well as a .500 record. Miner’s save percentage would top the MAAC leaderboard if he reached the minimum number of starts, and his goals against average would be good for third best.
“I think you look at the defense in front of him, and they’re just playing with more confidence,” Poli said. “They have an understanding of what shots he wants to see.”
It’s clearly what the Bobcats needed. Two wins later, and Quinnipiac is once again back in the postseason, clinching its fourth straight MAAC Tournament appearance. Not only that, with a win against Manhattan Wednesday, April 22, Quinnipiac may have an opportunity to finish as high as third in the conference regular season standings.
However, scoreboard watching isn’t for the Bobcats. The message there is simple, and one that has rang true on the team since that unexpected win in the 2025 MAAC Tournament proved they could turn this thing around.
“I think we’re just going to focus on us,” Watson said.
Quinnipiac looks to get one more home win this season, taking on Manhattan in its season finale Wednesday, April 22. Face-off is set for 3 p.m.
