Two more teams came to Athens last weekend hoping to hand the Bobcats their first loss of Mid-American Conference play, and two more teams left town frustrated and empty-handed.
Ohio (13-3, 6-0 MAC) relied on its usual stellar defense to shut out Kent State on Friday and Missouri State on Saturday. Redshirt senior Louzeth Schutte scored three goals over the weekend, and sophomore Jessica Jue picked up five assists.
“The way this season is going, I always expect our defense to be on,” goalkeeper Jen McGill said. “That’s something we’ve been consistent with. It’s never really anything that I wonder about.”
McGill had four saves in the 2-0 win against Kent State and three saves in the 3-0 win against Missouri State.
She must have breathed a sigh of relief Friday when Schutte opened the scoring near the end of the first half. Schutte scored once more against the Golden Flashes before adding another tally against Missouri State the next day.
“Lo is an amazing player,” Jue said. “She really is an asset to our team.”
Schutte has made news several times this season for her work on defense, but she has also contributed on offense. She has six scores overall and is fifth on the team in points with 19.
Jue leads the Bobcats in points this season. She now has 17 assists with the seven goals she had already scored, pushing her point total to 31.
Coming into Saturday’s game, Jue was tied for Ohio’s single season record in assists. She broke the record early in the second half of the 3-0 win when Taylor Brown sent home the first of her two goals on the day.
“That’s excellent,” said coach Neil Macmillan about the record. “I think that just speaks to how well our corners have been executed because she’s the injector. … If she doesn’t do a good job of putting the ball in the place where it needs to be, then the rest of the corner can’t be executed.
“But she’s also had some in open play as well. … She’s just got good vision and a good idea of the game of hockey and knows how to play it really well.”
All five of Ohio’s goals this past weekend came from penalty corners. Kent State had eight penalty corners compared with seven for the Bobcats, who were also outshot by the Golden Flashes, 9-7.
“Most of their games are pretty high scoring,” McGill said, “and they’re usually really good at scoring a lot of goals very quickly.
“There were times in the first half where we were put under a lot of pressure, so it was really good that we didn’t let anything go by.”
me811508@ohiou.edu
QUICK STATS
OHIO 2, Kent State 0
-Louzeth Schutte scored twice and goalkeeper Jen McGill made four saves to get the shutout.
OHIO 3, Missouri State 0
-Jessica Jue’s three assists made her the holder of Ohio’s record for assists in a season. Taylor Brown had two goals and Louzeth Schutte scored once.
