Ohio has come out swinging in the Mid-American Conference season.
A swift, three-set sweep of Kent State on Thursday night announced the start of the
Bobcats' (10-4, 2-0 MAC) conference title defense.
And against one of the MAC's best teams, Central Michigan, Saturday night, they kicked off their shoes and got comfortable.
For the second straight match, Ohio was able to cool off one of the conference's hottest teams.
The Bobcats ended Kent State's seven-match winning streak just days before, and snapped Central Michigan's six-match streak with another sweep Saturday.
They continued their solid all-around game that started against the Golden Flashes, and aggressive serving came to their aid again in a tight first set.
Ohio traded points with the Chippewas early on and neither team had a lead larger than two points until outside hitter Ellen Herman won six consecutive points on her serve for a 17-11 lead.
Much like a 4-0 service run from Herman Thursday night, her 6-0 stretch against the Chippewas fueled the Bobcats to the win in game one.
The biggest thing is that we're playing really well on both sides of the ball
Ohio coach Ryan Theis said. Last year we had the defense and we spent the whole offseason working on our offense.
The second frame was one of Ohio's most efficient hitting sets in quite a while.
Service aces from Katie Post and Michelle Jantsch helped
re-establish the Bobcats' serving prowess, and Herman's seventh kill in the frame put her team up 23-17 and in position to go to the break up 2-0.
Middle blocker Meghan Simons ripped back-to-back kills to end the frame and set the Bobcats up for the second
consecutive sweep.
Ohio hit .467 as a team in the second set and tallied 15 kills.
I think the difficult preseason that we played has us ahead (of other teams) in terms of progression
Theis said. The issue now is getting complacent
because other teams are going to be trying to catch up to us.
Sue Jacobi tallied a kill to put Ohio up 10-7 in the third set, allowing some breathing room for the first time in a back-and-forth final frame.
Yet, it was another prolonged attack run that put the Chippewas away.
Post registered four kills in a separation stretch, forcing
Central Michigan coach Erik Olson into a time out.
Katie has been forced to play the right side out of necessity at times
but I told her I think she can be an All-Conference (middle blocker)
Theis said. We counted on her production to be better
and luckily we were right.
Theis' go-to weapons, Simons and Herman, teamed up in the final set to put the cap on another three-set win.
With the win, Ohio has opened the MAC season at 2-0 for the seventh consecutive year.
NOTES: Senior middle blocker Jane Sytsma missed her
second straight match with a knee injury. She suffered the injury last weekend against
Illinois, and could miss the remainder of the season. Theis said the staff will plan to not have her in the lineup, but did not offer a timetable on her return.
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