Bulldogs Ready For Saturday's Ivy Opener

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - Freshman Mary Kubiuk made her first career goal an important one. She scored the only goal of the game with 20 seconds left in the first half as Yale held off Quinnipiac 1-0 on Tuesday at Reese Stadium.

Kristen Forster started the play by sending a pass to Becky Brown, who slid the ball to Kubiuk. Kubiuk took a few dribbles along the right wing and fired a shot into the right corner.

"We talked before the game about being patient on offense," said Yale head coach Rudy Meredith. "We did that extremely well on the goal."

The win snapped the Bulldogs' three-game losing streak and gives them some positive momentum heading into Saturday's Ivy League opener at Princeton.

"I think we're ready," Meredith said. "We tried to use tonight to finalize any changes we wanted to make."

Yale (4-3) has now won all eight meetings with the Bobcats, but this one was probably the most difficult. Quinnipiac (1-4-1) outshot the Bulldogs 5-3 in the second half and had a couple of opportunities to tie the game.

"This is the best Quinnipiac team I've faced," Meredith said. "I give them a lot of credit."

Yale goalkeeper Ayana Sumiyasu made two saves to post the shutout in goal, the Bulldogs fourth of the season.

"We didn't make any bad mistakes. It seems every time we've made a bad mistake, it's resulted in a goal," Meredith said. "Tonight we did a good job."

Yale finished the game with an 11-8 edge in shots and a 7-4 advantage in corner kicks.

Kendra Margulies made five saves in goal for Quinnipiac.

Saturday's game with the Tigers gets underway at 5 p.m.

Report filed by Tim Bennett, Yale Sports Publicity