For the second consecutive season, the Bobcats will find themselves at home for the NCAA Tournament, despite winning the Mid-American Conference regular season title and finishing with the best winning percentage in the MAC.
Ohio (21-10) also won its final match of the season Friday against Notre Dame, besting the Fighting Irish in a five-set thriller, but the win was not enough to earn the Bobcats their way into the NCAA Tournament.
“I thought Friday’s win would give us a good chance to make the tournament, but we still kind of felt like it would be a long shot to be selected,” Ohio coach Ryan Theis said. “There were two or three teams similar to ours that were selected ahead of us, which means it came down to maybe one or two matches of us not being chosen.”
Ohio secured an early 2-0 lead against Notre Dame, after closing out victories of 25-23 in each of the first two sets, but the Fighting Irish continued to battle back, despite being one set away from defeat.
After the intermission, Notre Dame dominated Ohio in the third set and did not trail en route to a 25-15 victory in the third set, yet the Bobcats still held onto the 2-1 match lead. The Fighting Irish closed out the fourth set to force a fifth and final one.
In contrast to last week, the two teams traded points for the majority of the final game, but Ohio broke the 11-11 tie, scored the final four points and clinched the match.
“I’m very proud of the way we played Friday,” Theis said. “Last week, we were up 2-0 and couldn’t close out for the victory, so I thought we grew a lot in to not only win this match, but also throughout the season.”
The Bobcats were led by a team effort on offense, as four different players recorded double-digit kills, highlighted by sophomore outside hitter Chelsea Bilger, who notched 18 kills.
Defensively, Ohio allowed five Notre Dame hitters to break double-digits in kills, but the Bobcats also finished with 12 blocks and a 23-dig performance from freshman libero Meredith Ashy.
The Bobcats finished the season with an RPI of 52, but were not successful during the regular season when playing teams that currently are ahead of Ohio in the standings. In the NCAA Tournament’s field of 64, the best 33 teams to not earn an automatic bid are selected.
This season Ohio went a combined 2-7 against Oregon, Kentucky, Pepperdine, Dayton, Bowling Green, North Carolina, North Carolina State and Notre Dame.
The Falcons are the lone MAC representatives in the tournament this year.
“BYU was selected to the tournament, because they entered conference play with an RPI of 8,” Theis said. “When you have a team with an RPI that strong before beginning conference play, it makes everyone better. Unfortunately this season, no one in the MAC had a high RPI and only one team was selected.”
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