Ohio got the job done Thursday night at Bird Arena. After losing three games straight, the Bobcats got back on track with their 7-3 win against Robert Morris.
“I actually didn’t realize we lost that many games,” Ohio coach Lionel Mauron said. “We never really doubted ourselves, we just kind of waited (and) we improved a lot this week in practice.”
Ohio’s improvements were noticeable. Penalties have been a huge problem for the Bobcats leading up to this game, but they had much more control over these setbacks Thursday.
Although Ohio had nine penalties on the night, it showed improvement in its penalty kill. It only allowed two goals on seven power plays, which is a change compared to how Ohio had played in recent games.
“That was our focus all week,” Mauron said. “We worked really hard on that, did a lot of videos and on the ice as well, when you put the work in it usually plays out.”
On the flip side was Ohio’s performance on its own power plays. The Bobcats took advantage of the penalties from Robert Morris and found success in getting to the back of the net.
The Bobcats have struggled to score on power plays as of late. But on Thursday, two of Ohio’s seven goals were on the power play. Ohio got opportunities from Robert Morris, and it followed through and took advantage.
“I’m happy about the way we responded,” Mauron said. “I think that was a struggle for us all season long and there’s still a lot we can improve.”
Even though Ohio was able to respond better Thursday, it still had its own batch of penalties. Phil Angervil and Andrew Wells both took 10-minute misconduct penalties late in the third period, giving Ohio 34 total penalty minutes.
“We still took too many tonight,” Mauron said. “At least we took advantage of their abilities and our (penalty kill) was better.”
Ohio had 52 shots on goal and seven of them made it to the back of the net. Nearly half of those goals came from senior Drew Maygar. Magyar was the leading scorer for the Bobcats on Thursday and earned a hat trick, finishing with three goals on the night. He has been a huge contributor for the team both on and off of the ice and stood out for Ohio in this game.
“Right now, we played a pretty good game today,” Magyar said. “I’ve had a lot of opportunities, a lot of shots, so it kind of springs in the next couple of games, keep putting the puck in the net.”
From start to finish, Ohio was able to make things happen, from scoring chances to getting penalty kills. Its improvements will all be important moving forward in the coming games and beyond.
“I think we knew that tonight if we played our game we would come out on top,” Mauron said. “It feels good, it’s one strike in the right direction (and) we have two more games this weekend so we have room for improvement.”
