Through 70 minutes of regulation play, the Ohio field hockey team was just as good as the conference's top team and the nation's ninth ranked team.
A pair of overtime periods, however, resulted in two losses for the Bobcats
(5-9 overall, 3-3 Mid-American Conference) in contests against Kent State and No. 9 Iowa.
We're not finding a way to win in opportune situations where we should be winning
said Ohio coach Shelly Morris. We should have won on Friday we should have won today.
On Friday, Kent State (7-8, 5-1 MAC) scored in the second minute of the first half, and then again in the 27th minute to take a 2-0 advantage.
The Bobcats fought back with three unanswered goals - two off the stick of forward Chelsea Mearig and one by forward Liz Holtzman - to take the lead.
It's great to know we can battle back Morris said.
The advantage held until the closing moments of the contest, when Kent State's
Lauren Grandinetti found the back of the net with 27 seconds left in regulation to force overtime.
A team like Kent is not going to roll over and die on you
Morris said.
It took Kent State barely more than one minute in the overtime period to score and win, 4-3.
A similar story was told on Sunday as the Iowa Hawkeyes ventured into Pruitt
Field.
Iowa (10-5) lit up the scoreboard first in the 23rd minute, but again the resilience of Ohio shined as back Kristin Hann took a Mearig pass off a penalty corner and tied the score.
Both teams remained scoreless in the second half, resulting in another extra period for Ohio.
Like Friday's outcome, it did not take long for a winner to emerge. It took the Hawkeyes less than 20 seconds to pass the Ohio defense and score to win, 2-1.
I don't really know what happened
it was only 14 seconds
Morris said. I blinked and it was over and they won.
Mearig said Ohio can build on its performance during the weekend, but it must begin to put teams away.
We just need to realize when we need to finish and we need to have a sense of pride with winning and wanting to finish the ball
and actually wanting to win the game instead of just going into overtime and being satisfied with that
Mearig said.
Goalie Jennifer Cote said the team performed well against the national powerhouse.
We had a great opportunity to win
and we kept them on their heels the whole entire game and that's something people don't really expect from us
Cote said. I think we gave them a run for their money today.
Ohio returns to conference play next weekend with its final home stand of the 2003 campaign. The Bobcats face Central Michigan at 3 p.m. Friday and Ball State at 1 p.m. Saturday. Both games will be held at Peggy Pruitt Field.
