Usually on homecoming weekend you go back home. For seven Bobcats, home will be coming back to them tonight when Pittsburgh visits Bird Arena.
Five players on Ohio’s roster — Jared Fuhs, Nick Rostek, Josh Fodor, David Veitch and Nathan De La Torre — hail from the Steel City, while Tom Whetsel and Mike Kretz are from nearby suburbs. The fact that nearly one-third of his roster is from the area is no coincidence, coach Dan Morris said.
“We do recruit heavily out of Pittsburgh, and the school as a whole recruits heavily out of the Pittsburgh area,” he said. “When we go in to recruit kids from Pittsburgh, they’re familiar with Ohio University most of the time, so it’s definitely an area that we have a presence in.”
The opportunity to play their hometown school in their new town’s homecoming game is something the seven have been looking forward to.
“It will be interesting,” said Whetsel, wearing a Penguins hat. “I have a few buddies who play for Pittsburgh, so I’ve been talking to them. We’re looking forward to playing.”
Despite being geographically close, the two schools have never met in Morris’s 15-plus years as a coach and player at Ohio. He said that’s something he’d like to change in the coming years.
“It’s a big name school, it’s somebody that I’d like to establish a rivalry with,” Morris said.
“Unfortunately, that’s something that we haven’t explored too much, but its something that I’d like to look at a little bit more.”
While Ohio (5-1-0) has zero direct experience with Pittsburgh (3-2), the Panthers are only 1-8 against other Central States Collegiate Hockey League teams over the past two years, giving up an average of 5.9 goals in those games.
That’s finger-lickin’ good news for a Bobcat offense averaging 4.5 goals through its opening six games.
But after last Sunday’s 6-1 loss to Delaware, Morris said he’s more focused on getting his team back on track than Pittsburgh’s tendency to give up goals.
He specifically zeroed in on establishing a forecheck, winning three-on-three battles down low and transitioning from offense to defense when turning the puck over. Those little parts of the game added up to a big loss.
“I think (tonight’s) game is a different case scenario: we’ve really got to focus on back what we need to do,” Morris said. “We made a lot of mistakes Sunday, and we got away from a lot of things I like to have us do, and you saw the results from it.
“It’s going to be very important to get some of our confidence back.”
cd211209@ohiou.edu
