The Bobcats will curtail their longest home stand of Mid-American-Conference play Sunday with a chance to improve on their previous winless weekend.
After moving into third place in the MAC East standings this past weekend and eighth overall in the conference with four points, the Bobcats could gain back some ground this weekend when they welcome Akron and Buffalo to Chessa Field — two of the weaker teams in the conference.
Ohio coach Stacy Strauss said she wants to see her team rebound in strong fashion this weekend.
“I’m expecting to see the resilience that this group has shown, especially in this off-season, coming off of a disappointing fall last year. The group we have now is really committed to do whatever it would take to work hard, no excuses, blue collar mentality,” Strauss said. “I think that’s what’s going to allow them to be resilient coming off a weekend that was a little bit disappointing.”
Akron is winless in conference play this season and has lost five games in a row. Senior Ashley Hughes leads the Zips with four goals and 11 points on the season. However, Ohio has not defeated Akron since 2008.
The Bulls have two wins this season, but haven’t won a match in almost three weeks.
Strauss said the team has proven to themselves before that they can win two straight games, and they need play at the level they are capable of this weekend — and that starts with better ball movement in matches.
Ohio senior midfielder Cat Rogers said this weekend’s matches have to end in the win column.
“I think the last two games should have been a bounce back game, but we came off with a no win weekend, which was unfortunate and not something we wanted to do,” Rogers said. “Only getting one point out of six on the weekend is not good, and we know it’s not good enough.”
Rogers said the team has been too focused on the parts of the game that need work and they need to put that aside and focus on playing a complete game instead of focusing on one aspect.
Ohio sophomore midfielder Tonya Frasik said this weekend is going to be a statement weekend.
“We’ve got to prove to ourselves that we’re still the No. 1 team and we want to be No. 1,” Frasik said.
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