Heart of the matter: QU women’s soccer team earns draw with Maryville on Felix’s late goal

QUINCY — The sheer excitement of the moment needed to be quickly tempered.

Less than five minutes remained in regulation Sunday afternoon when Jessica Felix toe-poked in the game-tying goal and elicited an emphatic response from both the Quincy University women’s soccer team’s sideline and the sizable Legends Stadium crowd.

Still, the Hawks couldn’t afford a euphoric hangover.

“Relief and stress,” senior goalkeeper Olivia Kindt said. “Now we’re tied, so it really takes every single ounce of effort from our back line to keep the ball out. But it’s so relieving, even when we’re down for 40 minutes at one point, knowing we can still put one in and put our team back on the board.”

In two critical parts of the 2-2 Great Lakes Valley Conference draw with Maryville — Felix’s goal and the lockdown thereafter — the Hawks revealed three reasons the program is evolving.

Character, consistency and composure.

“To come back and tie a game on a Sunday, that’s huge,” first-year QU coach Mackenzie Schissel said. “To have that fight and desire to keep going, that’s the heart that we need.”

It’s the heart the Hawks (1-4-4, 1-2-2 GLVC) expect.

“I think it shows,” said Felix, the senior forward who scored both of QU’s goals. “We didn’t give up at all. I think that gives you your answer. We have so much heart.”

Felix epitomized it.

Quincy trailed 2-1 after Maryville’s Ashlyne Hunt ran onto a through ball from Gina Catanzaro, raced past the Hawks’ back line and beat Kindt 1-on-1 for the go-ahead goal in the 78th minute.

Six minutes later, after the Saints (4-2-3, 2-0-3 GLVC) struggled to get a goal kick out of the attacking third, the Hawks sent the ball into the box where Maryville defender Maddie Dickerman attempted to shield Felix and let the ball roll to goalkeeper Katie Nash.

Undeterred, Felix leaned on the back of Dickerman and used her length to toe-poke the ball into the right side of the net, tying the game with 4:29 remaining.

“Just get a foot in. That’s all I was thinking,” Felix said. “If I can get a toe poke in and at least throw the keeper off, there’s a chance. I had to make her make a save. I was just reaching my long legs out there trying to get something on it, and I did.”

It resonated as a never-give-up-or-give-in moment.

“You can’t give up,” Felix said. “There’s 90 minutes in a game. And like you saw, anything can happen in 30 seconds.”

It doesn’t take long to alter a team’s destiny.

“It’s just one moment, one moment that we need,” Schissel said. “All it takes is just one moment to change a game.”

Heart is required to be ready for that moment, something the Hawks know they have.

“So much,” Kindt said. “It’s night and day compared to last year, even the COVID season, too. I’ve seen the team throw their bodies at balls that last year’s team would take a touch and then lose the ball after that. It looks good for the program.

“We come to training every single day, and we’re laughing around and having fun, but there is so much hard work going into it.”