CLEVELAND- The look on the Bobcats' faces with seven minutes to go said it all.
In the place of the determined looks that had been so prevalent on the Bobcat players' faces throughout the season was the look of exhaustion and disappointment. After fighting through three rounds of the Mid-American Conference tournament, Ohio seemed to have the fight taken out of it.
Ohio's 67-56 loss to Miami Saturday in the MAC championship was its fifth game in 11 days and was fresh off its double-overtime win over Bowling Green on Friday.
After we beat (Bowling Green
) it was such a high for us MAC tournament first-teamer Lauren Hmiel said. I think that we were focused on Miami we tried hard but we were always just a second behind.
We were a second behind getting in front of the offensive player and they would get the rebound ahead of us. We were a second behind trying to finish the layup.
Miami
which was just ninth in the league in rebounding-margin
outrebounded the conference-leading Bobcats 44-36. The RedHawks consistently beat the Bobcats to rebounds
which led to easy second-chance buckets.
Miami had 17 offensive rebounds to Ohio's eight and scored an eye-popping 21 second-chance points.
I thought, definitely, that rebounds were the difference in the game, coach Sylvia Crawley said. I thought that's what worked well for us in the Bowling Green game and we went away from that in this game and I thought that hurt us.
Despite the lopsided rebounding margins
Ohio was still in the game midway through the second half. The game was tied at 41-41 with 11:50 to play in the game when the wheels fell off for the Bobcats.
The RedHawks went on a 11-0 run in the next four minutes as Ohio missed multiple opportunities to halt Miami's assault. The 52-41 lead was ultimately too much for the Bobcats to come back from.
I think that coming down the stretch we had a lot of opportunities that we needed to come through with, Hmiel said. The ball didn't bounce our way or we didn't get that rebound we needed. We didn't connect when we needed to.
Ohio missed four layups and missed some open looks in that time span and compounded those problems by letting Miami get to the free-throw line off of offensive rebounds.
I don't think that physical fatigue had anything to do with the game, senior Lauren Kohn said. We had a lot of mental lapses. We weren't mentally focused at times and Miami, you've got to hand it to them, they did a good job of exploiting those mental weaknesses.
The loss ended a Cinderella run for the Bobcats' in which they made it to the MAC conference championship for the first time since 1986. The 20 wins that they accumulated were the most since the 1994-95 season and was the third highest win total in school history.
I'm extremely proud of these seniors and the leadership that they've shown, Crawley said. I told the players to hold their heads up high today, because I'm extremely happy with what they've accomplished this year.
All that is left now for Ohio
is to wait to see if they will get the opportunity to play in either the WNIT or the WNCI postseason tournaments.
You just don't know how things are going to play out, Crawley said. I definitely want to get to the postseason some how, some way.
QUICK STATS:
Leading Scorers:
(Ohio) Lauren Hmiel
12
(Miami) Amanda Jackson and Jenna Schone
20
Leading Rebounders:
(Ohio) Lauren Kohn
8
(Miami) Laura Markwood and Stephanie Ford
