After a strong outing on the turf Wednesday, the Ohio women's lacrosse team is rolling into its next game ready and confident.
Coach Allison Valentino said that the Bobcats' 10-6 win over the University of Maryland Baltimore County this week was the type of confidence builder her young team needed.
The 'Cats now play host to Penn State on Sunday for Ohio's second of three-straight home games at the end of its schedule.
I think that game will give us confidence
because the team that played (Wednesday) is the team I know we can be and show in practice Valentino said. I am really pleased on how we played. This should help us going into our next game.
The Bobcats (4-10, 0-4 American Lacrosse Conference) will look to put together back-to-back wins for the first time this season as they take on the Nittany Lions (5-7, 1-0) in ALC conference action.
Ohio will need an offensive production similar to the UMBC game because Penn State has plenty of fire power despite dropping out of the IWLCA top 20.
Attacker Shannon Hadaway said netting goals had been a problem for the Bobcats lately, until the team's run in last week's game.
In our previous games the offense was really stagnant
Hadaway said. It was a little better today (against UMBC)
but we still have to keep working.
Ideally, the Bobcats would like to avoid their slow starts even though they were able to come back from a 4-1 deficit against UMBC.
Every day at practice this week
we made sure that we came out really hard from the beginning
attacker Kiersten McLouth said. We did get down today (with UMBC)
but we didn't dig ourselves as deep as we usually do. It was something that was a goal for us.
Two keys the Bobcats improved on in the UMBC contest was draw controls and turnovers, elements of the game that were costing Ohio victories throughout the season.
Turnovers weren't a problem in the UMBC match; we were under 20 and only had seven in the second half
Valentino said. Also dominating on the draw controls was great
it was something we haven't done all season
but I knew the team could.
Opening draw is set for the Bobcats and Nittany Lions at 1 p.m. Sunday at Peggy Pruitt Field.
