Per the horses on sticks the small Miami cheering section waved emphatically in the stands, Ohio was ridden out of Oxford Saturday evening in a 3-1 loss to the RedHawks.
Following a win Friday night at Bowling Green, the Bobcats (12-7, 4-2) once again failed to maintain a consistent level of play for long periods of time, dropping three straight sets after dominating the first.
We came out in that first set with a ton of energy
said senior Meryl Bender. After we got that I felt that we were on our high horse a bit. We got a wake-up call from Miami.
They pushed back a bit, gave us some pressure, and we didn't answer that pressure.
In the midst of a dominating first set in which Ohio took a 10-1 lead it looked as if the team could do no wrong. The offense had a .526 hitting percentage for the set and committed only one error in the process.
After that set
the Bobcats collapsed. The team had three consecutive sets with increasingly worse statistics
which peaked with seven errors and a .139 hitting percentage in the fourth and final set.
As the Bobcats faltered
the RedHawks gained momentum. Miami (7-12
2-4) had a negative hitting percentage in the first set but improved gradually as the match progressed
pushing Ohio at every opportunity.
They put a lot of service pressure on us the entire time and, basically, we couldn't handle it, Bender said.
Volley after volley
Ohio had struggles setting up its offense off the first opportunity it had to touch the ball
as the RedHawks worked every hole in the Bobcat defense to keep the team on the edge.
Miami was doing a really great job setting us up on our first touches, coach Ryan Theis said. They just kept on pushing our deep corners over and over again.
To try and combat the pressure from Miami
Theis did something not usually seen this year: he placed three liberos on the court simultaneously.
For a team that usually applies an aggressive
