This season had a lot of promise for the Ohio soccer team. Bolstering a strong returning team and talented freshmen, coach Aaron Rodgers was optimistic about how this season would go.
About three weeks into the season, his feelings were reassured with a 2-2 start to the 2016 campaign.
Then, the season plummeted.
What started out as a strong start quickly turned to a team that was bottom of the Mid-American Conference and suffering a eight-game winless streak and a 5-12-1 overall record.
It was another year of missing the MAC Tournament — the team hasn’t been since 2013. There is a lot to be learned from the 2016 campaign as the Bobcats look to move forward.
Young Talent
Rodgers brought in a lot of young freshmen this year. The freshman, collectively scored 10 goals, more than one-third of the team's goals this season.
Contrary to years past, scoring wasn’t a problem this year. Freshmen Sydney Leckie, Alivia Milky and Remi Eades, were three players Rodgers looked to, producing when out on the pitch.
When Eades was in the game, she generally played as the sole striker with Leckie either out wide or behind her as attacking midfielder. If Milesky was in the game, she would generally play the attacking midfielder role and was potent, too.
Whenever Milesky got the ball, she looked to advance and set up goals for her strikers, and most of the time, she was successful. She was second on the team with three assists behind Leckie.
Milesky’s ability to set shots up and finesse her way through the midfield, made her a central force in the attack and with her first season out of the way, she and the other aforementioned freshmen should mesh well together next season.
Playing it close
Last season, Ohio had nine shutout losses, all of them being multiple goal losses as well. Simply put, the team struggled to score. This season, it had four shutout losses and only two of them were by more than one goal.
That is significantly better than last year, and of the 12 losses, half of them were in overtime.
For Rodgers’ team, it wasn’t a matter of scoring this year. It was a matter of scoring at the right time. Through almost every game this season, it was the same: the opponent would get an early lead, Ohio would rally back, then it would surrender the lead either late in the game of in overtime.
Why couldn’t Ohio ever get the edge? Rodgers needs to find an answer, but it did show strides of improvement from last season. With the second year of the 4-3-3 formation being implemented into the system and an assistant that works well with this formation, next year, might be the breakout year.
Rodgers on the hot seat
One full recruiting class and four seasons at the helm, is Rodgers in a tough spot? In terms of his teams records, since he took over in 2013, his team has declined. His first year, Ohio went to the MAC Tournament and hasn’t returned since.
Now that he has had one year with all of the players he recruited, was this season his last to experiment and find a way to get the program back into the conference tournament? While his team has improved in terms of scoring and keeping matches closer throughout this season, rather than seasons past, will that be enough to give him another shot at building this team?
He will probably get another contract extension, but it may not be a long term one. Rodgers has shown that he can improve a team and change certain parts of the game, but the one thing that needs help is the win column.
If this isn’t Rodgers’ last season, he may only have one or two more seasons to prove he’s ready to get his team back to competing in the MAC Tournament.
