Repeating History: Savanna Reilly Defeats Rider In MAAC Field Hockey Semis

Friday, November 6

So Sweet A Cat Field - West Long Branch, N.J.

2:00 pm

Quinnipiac University

(9-10, 5-1MAAC)

Rider - MAAC Semifinals

(12-7, 4-2MAAC)

Rider University

Quinnipiac

Repeating History: Savanna Reilly Defeats Rider In MAAC Field Hockey Semis

11/6/2015 4:15:00 PM | Field Hockey

Box Score

By: QU Sports Information

WEST LONG BRANCH, N.J. - Senior forward Savanna Reilly (Hamden, Conn.) and the Quinnipiac field hockey team were more than happy to experience a case of deja vu on Friday afternoon in the semifinals of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Championships at Monmouth University.

Reilly scored her second goal of the game in a scramble off a penalty corner with no time left on the clock to give the second-seeded Bobcats a 3-2 win over Rider and enable Quinnipiac to advance to Sunday's finals at 11 a.m. against Fairfield, which upset top-seeded Monmouth 2-1.

The exact same thing happened in the regular season meeting between the teams at Rider, with Reilly's second goal with 0:00 on the clock tying the score 2-2 and forcing overtime, which the Bobcats would win 3-2. It was one of three overtime games that Quinnipiac won in conference play this season, on its way to a 5-1 record and a share of the regular season title.

This time around, Reilly scored her first goal early in the second half to give the Bobcats a 2-1 lead with 23:36 left off an assist from Feilcia Costanzo.(Lakeland, N.Y.). The Broncs answered back to tie the score 2-2 with 19:39 to go as Angie Price deflected in a shot from Rachel Ippolite and kept the momentum going with a couple of near misses in the ensuing minutes.

Junior defender Angie King (South Windsor, Conn. - pictured), who had a big first half for the Bobcats, then cleared the ball out of pressure with a perfect lift to midfield with just under a minute to play, and the Bobcats were able to earn a penalty corner in the closing seconds. After the regulation clock ran out, Quinnipiac took the corner and its first attempt was deflected away. Junior defender Lily Shemo (Luzerne, Pa.) got to the loose ball and played it back into the middle, where Reilly used a reverse sweep to get the ball past Rider goalie Joelle Prettyman and into the net for the dramatic game-winner.

"With no time left on the clock, you know you just have to do anything you can to make a play," said Reilly. "Dive at the ball, lunge after it, whatever it takes. I don't even really know what happened exactly, I just saw the ball come in, and I just tried to play it towards the net any way I could and hope maybe someone would be there to finish it off."

"It's just an incredibly high level of focus that we seem to have," said Head Coach Becca Main of her team's late-game dramatics. "I told the team after the game that I've really never seen a team liike this. There's just a focus and a calm that comes over them under pressure, and they work together, and I think that's a really hard thing to teach. I've had great players and great teams that have maybe turned to one player to try to do everything, but with this team it can be anyone. I think when you can turn to anyone on the team and ask them to be a hero at a given time, you can have these sort of heroic outcomes."

Rider was the first to score in the opening half, as Shannon Hughes scored off a penalty corner, but King then came up big for the Bobcats. She knotted the score up off a penalty corner at the 20:09 mark, and then added to her nation's leading total with her 13th defensive save of the year after senior goalie Megan Conaboy (Clarks Summitt, Pa.) made two straight saves off a penalty corner, and was prone on the ground six yards out of net, keeping the score 1-1 and leaving the momentum on Quinnipiac's side heading into halftime.

"Megan and I just have a good relationship where she reacts to a situation and I react off of her," said King. "It was just a play where she stepped up to make a big save and I just reacted to her, and knew to step in behind."

Conaboy finished the game with four saves as Rider held a 14-11 edge in shots, while the Bobcats took 10 penalty corners to seven for Rider. Prettyman also had four saves for Rider, which sees its season end at 12-7.

Quinnipiac (9-10) moves on to face Fairfield on Sunday to try to win its second MAAC title in the last three years. The two teams met in the regular season finale, which Quinnipiac won 5-4 in overtime to earn its share of the regular season title. The winner of the rematch will claim the league's postseason title and the right to advance to the NCAA Division I Tournament.