Ohio felt a little blue as it finished off its longest Mid-American Conference home stand of the season Sunday, losing to Buffalo 1-0.
In the 17th minute of the first half, Buffalo was awarded a penalty kick after sophomore goalkeeper Nicole Amari slid into Buffalo senior forward/midfielder Taylor Thompson to save the ball, but was called for a foul in the box.
The Bulls were awarded a penalty kick, which sophomore midfielder Courtney Mann drilled into the upper right corner of the goal, for the game’s only score.
“I definitely don’t think it was a penalty so it was kind of unfair, but it is what it is,” Amari said. “It’s just one of those things where you can’t really win on it so after that you just had to pretend it was 0-0 and our team just needed to go and do what they can.”
Ohio coach Stacy Strauss said the Bulls did a good job to hold on and receive their first victory in MAC play.
“Once Buffalo was gifted a goal, I thought they did a good job to become more disruptive and get numbers around the ball and attack,” Strauss said. “We failed to beat that pressure by playing each other clean balls by playing in one and two touch. On too may occasions we took an extra touch that resulted in two turnovers and just couldn’t find it, so credit Buffalo for figuring out a way to hold on there toward the end.”
Amari was forced to make five saves in the first half before being replaced by redshirt sophomore goalkeeper Rachel Fryan, who posted a clean sheet.
Both Fryan and Amari have not played in a match since Cleveland State.
The Bobcats had chances to capitalize on the deficit; however, they were unable to break free despite several chances in the second half.
The Bobcats only managed three shots on goal in the game as opposed to Buffalo’s 10. With 13 minutes remaining in the match, senior midfielder Cat Rogers was injured and did not return for the remainder of the match as a precaution.
Ohio junior midfielder Maggie Murnane said the team struggled in the offensive third and the team would have to put the loss behind them and move forward.
“All great teams lose games and the best teams are the ones that can get back from them,” Murnane said. “I think we proved that after CMU (Central Michigan) and Miami and we’ve got a couple games left under our belts so we’re just going to keep going.”
mk277809@ohio.edu
