With four games remaining before the Mid-American Conference tournament, the Ohio field hockey team is looking for a pair of wins at home this weekend against Miami and Louisville.
The Bobcats (4-12 overall, 2-4 MAC) will welcome the first-and last-place teams in the MAC, Louisville (8-8, 6-1 MAC) and Miami (5-10, 0-7 MAC), on Friday and Saturday, respectively.
This weekend is a big weekend for us
coach Shelly Morris said. If we can take two this weekend -one against Miami and try to overcome a difficult earlier loss to Louisville and take it to them -it'd be huge. It's our parent's weekend we have a ton of alumni coming here and it's the seniors' last home game.
Ohio met both teams on the road during the first weekend of October. The Cardinals took it to Ohio, winning in impressive fashion by a score of 6-1. The Bobcats took a 3-1 win against Miami in Oxford.
With the outcomes of the earlier season matches, Ohio fell to 27-6 all-time against Louisville and 15-24 against the RedHawks.
The Ohio offense and defense will be looking to find some rhythm, something both have been unable to do so far this season. Mentally, the Bobcats will have to cope with rebounding from the team's worst loss since 2000, a 9-1 romp doled out by Kent State last weekend.
Some of the scores we've had have been a little disheartening as far as the number of goals we're allowing and the way we self-destruct Morris said. That's pretty much what we did on Sunday (against Kent State)
and I felt like that was kind of a culmination of the season. We tried to play through and mentally be tough and
for as hard as we're working
we're not seeing the results.
In the loss to the Golden Flashes, Morris gave goalies Jennifer Cote and Ashley Pitkin some action. Both keepers made four saves with Cote allowing three goals and Pitkin six goals.
Cote now has 135 saves this season, 47 more than she had to make last season. With 15 more saves, Cote will tie a 1994 mark of 150 saves in a season set by Gretchen Bush - good enough for a place in the all-time top 10.
On the offensive side of the stick, midfielder Erica Bundalo is still three assists shy of topping the single-season assists record list. However, for Bundalo to have a chance at this mark, the Ohio corner, which Bundalo quarterbacks, will have to be more successful than it has during recent games.
I do think we still have a way to finish this strong and on a positive note within our conference
Morris said. That's what we're going to look to do.
