The Bobcats opened on their home court last night, and Middle Tennessee plead no contest.
Ohio touched nearly every ball at the net and used timely kills from Ellen Herman and Meghan Simons to upset the nation's No. 14 ranked team in three consecutive sets ' their seventh win in a row.
Coach Ryan Theis said he thrives on energy, and his team's energy was palpable from the opening serve.
Simons tallied 11 kills on the night, many of the momentum-changing variety, and the Bobcats neutralized every Blue Raider run, winning 25-13, 25-15 and 25-22.
It was really the first contact of their serve and our ability to pass (that earned the win)
Theis said. (Middle Tennessee) was down 0-2 to Duke last weekend and came back to win. We knew they would come out more aggressive.
We only had about two or three miscommunications throughout the match, and that makes it easier for everyone else.
The Bobcats were efficient from the serve line for the duration of the match with libero Sarah Petrulis contributing four aces to lead all players.
Middle Tennessee earned its first lead of the match at 3-2 of the third and final frame.
As the match wore on the Blue Raiders managed to put together two significant runs
but both were negated by a Simons' kill.
Simons said the team identified the match as a statement. They were looking to prove their critics wrong after many counted them out when former coach Geoff Carlston left.
We wanted to prove that we are still good, Simons said. We're still here and we want to win a Mid-American Conference championship.
It means there's no wavering in our play ' we wanted to win in three
and we won in three. We didn't let up
and it just really shows the nation that we're still here.
The most telling statistic of the night was Ohio's seven blocks in the second set, three of which were registered by Sue Jacobi.
Herman finished with eight kills and two blocks on the night, and credited the home crowd as a major factor in the sweep.
Every once in a while we have fans on the road
Herman said. When we're down
it's hard to get our emotion back up. When we were down a couple points
it was really nice to have the backbone of our fans here.
Herman's front-line support, Simons and Jane Sytsma, were defensive stalwarts all night, constantly keeping Middle Tennessee's fast offense out of sync.
Meghan and Jane were up every single time getting touches
Herman said. It makes the defense easier to play behind when we're getting touches on the ball.
It was like the ball came down and it was 'point, Ohio' every time.
