Imagine the needle of a record player getting caught in one track, repeating the song again and again until the album is abruptly removed from the apparatus.
That’s a characterization of how the season unfolded for Ohio, who displayed a flair for the dramatic this year as it played in 11 one-goal games. But unlike last season when the Bobcats emerged victorious in nine of their 13 games decided by one goal, the Bobcats’ dramatic ways caught up with them in 2012; they lost seven of their 10 one-goal affairs.
Ohio coach Neil Macmillan said the team was very close to having a dramatically altered year if a few of those contests swung the other way.
“(The season) certainly fell a long way from our expectations,” Macmillan said. “You need to look at the number of games we lost by one goal and in overtime. That’ll tell you how close we were to a totally different season.”
But close wasn’t good enough for the Bobcats this year, whose season came to a sudden end as Miami dispatched the Bobcats from the Mid-American Conference Tournament last Friday, scoring the game-winner in overtime en route to a 3-2 victory and sweeping the series for the first time in Macmillan’s tenure.
“We were a couple plays a game away from an outstanding season. That’s what we had (last season), and our expectations were that we would have that again,” Macmillan said. “We just fell short.”
And senior Marissa Higgins couldn’t help but be dissatisfied with the way the season played out.
“I think it’s a little bit disappointing,” Higgins said. “It really stinks to look back and know how well we could’ve done and to have not achieved very much.
There were just too many games, looking back, where we didn’t get the win that we should’ve. It’s just kind of sucky. I wish we would’ve done a little bit more with the talent that we had.”
But 2012 wasn’t all negative for individual players, as seniors Taylor Brown and Cathryn Altdoerffer earned first-team All-MAC honors, and senior Laura Mastro, junior Jessica Jue and Higgins each received a spot on the second team.
Brown was an offensive force for the Bobcats, tying for the team high with eight assists and leading the team with 11 goals. And with those goals, she raised her career total to 42 and became the third-highest goal scorer in program history.
Altdoerffer, despite not having her best season statistically with only two goals and five assists, was rewarded for her efforts this season as she was named to the National Field Hockey Coaches Association Senior Game, which will be played on Nov. 17 at Old Dominion University in Virginia.
“To be the only representative from the MAC going to the Senior All-Star Game is a great honor for us at Ohio,” Macmillan said. “Her skills have really come on over the years and she, in my mind, is the premiere player in the conference.”
Ohio will be losing a great deal of talent and experience as Brown, Higgins, Mastro and Altdoerffer all graduate, but the cupboard won’t be bare for Macmillan as players such as Jue, junior Katie Fenzel, sophomore goalie Brittany Walker and senior Andrea Biegalski, who redshirted this season because of an injury, will feature prominently on a squad that will continue to have big expectations in 2013.
ch203310@ohiou.edu
