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Photo via Logan Reardon<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
The Quinnipiac men\u2019s ice hockey team finished its regular season on Saturday with a convincing 4-1 win at Yale. The Bobcats\u2019 record was 25-7-2 as they now move on to postseason play.<\/p>\n
While a big win on the road against a rival is thrilling enough, Quinnipiac also clinched the No. 1 seed in the ECAC Hockey Tournament. The Bobcats finished tied with Cornell for first in the conference and got the top seed based on a tiebreaker (1-0-1 head-to-head vs. Cornell). <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was awesome,\u201d Quinnipiac junior forward Nick Jermain said on finding out the team won the Cleary Cup (winner of ECAC Hockey). \u201cWe didn\u2019t really know what was going on and then (Quinnipiac associate head coach Bill) Riga was like \u2018We got it\u2019. Everyone just freaked out and it was an awesome feeling, still being on the ice and being able to celebrate with everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Bobcats finished the year on fire, winning four of their last five games and outscoring opponents 20-10 across those games. Still, securing the No. 1 seed and an all-important first-round bye in the ECAC Hockey Tournament was pivotal. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s huge, we have a couple guys who could use a week off,\u201d Jermain said after the win. \u201cI mean, we all can this time of year. It\u2019s going to be a big advantage for us to be able to rest up, lick our wounds and then be ready to attack the rest of season.\u201d<\/p>\n
The rest of the season might not seem like much, but there\u2019s still a lot of hockey to be played. The bottom eight teams in the conference will begin the tournament on March 8, with the higher seed hosting a best-of-three series on their home ice. The top four seeds get that weekend off.<\/p>\n
The following weekend (March 15-17), No. 1 Quinnipiac will host the winner of No. 9 Princeton vs. No. 8 Brown at the People\u2019s United Center for a best-of-three series. The winner of that series will head to Lake Placid, New York for the ECAC Hockey Semifinal on March 22.<\/p>\n
After wrapping up the ECAC Hockey Tournament that weekend, Quinnipiac will learn its fate for the NCAA Tournament as it hopes to get back to another Frozen Four.<\/p>\n
The Quinnipiac women\u2019s ice hockey team wasn\u2019t on the same level as the men\u2019s team this season, as the Bobcats were eliminated in the ECAC Hockey Quarterfinals on March 2 after Clarkson swept them in two games.<\/p>\n
Quinnipiac finished the season 12-18-6, but a solid 9-9-4 record in ECAC Hockey earned it the No. 6 seed. But facing No. 3 Clarkson on the road proved to be a challenge. After playing Clarkson to a 1-1 tie in the season finale, the Bobcats couldn\u2019t get it going in the playoffs. A 3-0 loss in the first game and a 4-3 loss in the second game ended Quinnipiac\u2019s season.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately for the Bobcats, next season might be another tough one. Quinnipiac is losing its top three leading point-scorers, in seniors Melissa Samoskevich, Kenzie Lancaster and Randi Marcon. On the bright side, the next 12 leading point-scorers after those three were underclassmen, so the expectation is that they will all step up and fill the void.<\/p>\n
On the other side of the People\u2019s United Center, the Quinnipiac women\u2019s and men\u2019s basketball teams have been two of the strongest teams in their respective conferences.<\/p>\n
The women, as usual, have dominated the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC). For the fifth straight season, the Bobcats won the MAAC regular season championship. But that\u2019s not all. For the second straight season, the Bobcats finished a perfect 18-0 in the MAAC. They have won 49 straight MAAC contests heading into this weekend\u2019s MAAC Tournament in Albany.<\/p>\n
\u201cGoing into the MAAC, any team has to be as confident as possible,\u201d Quinnipiac senior guard Brittany Martin said. \u201cEvery team, even the last team in the conference, they\u2019re coming in wanting to win. You have that energy coming in, you never know what could happen. There could be an upset, but that\u2019s not what we want. We\u2019re coming in hungrier than ever.\u201d<\/p>\n
Quinnipiac travels to Albany looking for its third straight MAAC championship (and NCAA Tournament appearance). The Bobcats have won an NCAA Tournament game in each of the past two seasons.<\/p>\n
As good as the Bobcats have been on the national stage, their dominance in the MAAC cannot be overlooked. Nine of Quinnipiac\u2019s 18 conference wins this season came by 20 points or more and 16 of 18 came by at least 10 points. Pure dominance.<\/p>\n
The Bobcats had a few \u201cclose\u201d games down the stretch, including an eight-point win at Fairfield on Feb. 17 and a six-point win at Rider on Feb. 21, but they\u2019ve again been largely unchallenged this year. Look for that to continue in Albany.<\/p>\n
While the women\u2019s team is a perennial powerhouse, the men\u2019s basketball team has been anything but that. Things might be starting to change, though.<\/p>\n
After four straight years finishing below .500, Quinnipiac finished the 2018-19 regular season 16-13. While this might seem like a modest step, it\u2019s actually pretty huge for a program that won 12, 10 and nine games in the past three seasons.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\n\n
Photo via Logan Reardon<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
More importantly, the Bobcats finished 11-7 in the MAAC, good for a No. 3 seed in the upcoming MAAC Tournament. Quinnipiac will face the winner of No. 6 Monmouth vs. No. 11 Niagara. The Bobcats swept Monmouth in two games this season and split two games with Niagara.<\/p>\n
The season was Quinnipiac\u2019s best in years, but it could\u2019ve been better. Heading into Sunday, Quinnipiac just needed a win over Manhattan, who was 7-10 in the MAAC entering the game. A win over Manhattan and Quinnipiac would\u2019ve been crowned co-MAAC regular season champions and entered Albany as the No. 2 seed. The Bobcats disappointed, though, losing 62-58.<\/p>\n
\u201cDisappointing day for us,\u201d Quinnipiac head coach Baker Dunleavy said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been playing good basketball on the road, with two straight roads wins and I feel really good about where we are.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, for the first time in years, it seems as if both the women and the men have a realistic shot to win the MAAC Tournament. The men have never done it in program history, but this year they\u2019ve got as good a shot as ever.<\/p>\n
So while people are begging for this long, cold winter to end, these teams are praying it never does.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Three of the four Quinnipiac winter sports teams are still rolling into the playoffs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":622,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-quinnipiac"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/78"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=621"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2275,"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621\/revisions\/2275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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