Outlandish clichés and corny sayings aside, this weekend’s Mid-American Conference tournament is a chance for Ohio, a team picked to win the conference heading into the season, to salvage what has been a campaign defined by failed expectations.
The No. 4 seed Bobcats (8-8, 2-3 MAC) begin tournament play Friday against No. 1 Miami (10-9, 4-1 MAC), which defeated Ohio 3-1 on Saturday. If Ohio were to beat the RedHawks in the tournament opener, it would face either Kent State or Central Michigan for the MAC title Saturday.
But that’s too speculative for Ohio, the MAC’s defending tournament champion, as the Bobcats are focused on the task at hand, which is beating a Miami team that split the MAC regular season title with Kent State. The Bobcats are excited about the opportunity.
“We’re looking forward to it,” coach Neil Macmillan said. “I think from (Miami’s) point of view, it’s going to be hard to beat a good team twice. We controlled a vast majority of the first half of that game, so we’re looking forward to trying to take them on, be aggressive and take it to them.”
Macmillan sees the opportunity to play Miami for a second consecutive game as an advantage, since he feels the team that loses the first game of a season series often has an advantage the second time around because the other team feels few adjustments need to be made to ensure another victory.
In practice this week, Macmillan has prepared his team largely based on Saturday’s defeat, which the Bobcats believe was closer than the score indicated.
“We’ve done some stuff that we didn’t execute as well and some offensive plays that Neil felt would be more open based on their defense when we played them,” senior Marissa Higgins said. “It’s been kind of a nice week of preparation practices since we just played them and they’re not going to change much in a week.”
Although the players have adopted a positive attitude to practice this week, a loss would signal the end of five Ohio seniors’ collegiate careers.
“Every time on the field, especially being a senior, like (Wednesday) could’ve been my last practice,” Higgins said. “I think that our class is especially feeling that ‘all or die, we have to win this game’ attitude … It’s definitely a different feeling being your last game forever or your last game of the year.”
Macmillan is aware of the seniors’ situation, but he feels the Bobcats are more than prepared for the pressure of having their backs against the wall.
“Everyone’s been in that position before, so I think we’re comfortable with it,” Macmillan said. “Last year we had a lot of those games, so we’re looking forward to this weekend.”
ch203310@ohiou.edu
