After 70 minutes of play, Ohio was trailing, and its missed second-half opportunities were about to haunt the team for the entire offseason, but the Bobcats had one more chance to salvage the season.
They drew a corner opportunity as time expired and were granted one more untimed play, during which freshman Franziska Schmiedel took the first shot before a Kent State defender deflected it to Ohio junior Lauryl Desch, who stopped the ball just short of leaving the circle.
She then targeted her attempt and fired the ball into the back of the cage to force overtime, sending Ohio to a 3-2 win in double overtime when senior Jessica Jue scored the game-winning goal.
“I’m so proud of everyone on the team. We never stopped fighting,” senior Luli Gomez Teruel said. “We knew the game was all-or-nothing and we had that mentality. We knew what we wanted and we went out and got it.”
Ohio (7-9, 3-2 MAC) was relentless on the offensive side of the field, totaling 20 shots, which is second-most in a game this season, but many of the Bobcats’ shots were near misses, with the ball either going just wide of the goal or sailing over the crossbar.
Kent State (8-9, 4-1 MAC) pressured Ohio the entire second half, but Ohio junior goalkeeper Brittany Walker regrouped after two first-half goals to hold the Golden Flashes scoreless for the remainder of regulation. She finished the contest with seven saves in 87:16 spent in goal.
“Whenever we play Kent, we match their physical style,” Ohio coach Neil Macmillan said. “We had the opportunities all game long to score, we just couldn’t get them to go in. We just needed that one goal and we got it.”
This win was much more than “just another win,” because Ohio secured a spot in the MAC Tournament this weekend. However, the Bobcats are tied with Miami and Central Michigan for second, third and fourth in the MAC standings, so the seeding and matchups have yet to be determined.
“I think this win will go a long way for us,” Macmillan said. “It was a do-or-die situation and we did what we had to do to win and make the tournament. The emotion was also there to give Riley (Higgins) one more game.”
Senior Riley Higgins was hit in the face during pregame warm-ups and spent the majority of the game at O’Bleness Memorial Hospital being treated for a broken nose that also needed stitches.
Because of her injury, her Senior Day honoring was not with her teammates before the game, but rather after the win.
The difference between her honoring and the pregame one of her classmates Katherine Fenzel, Andrea Biegalski, Jue and Gomez Teruel was that they didn’t know if the Bobcats would be playing next weekend, but Higgins did.
The MAC Tournament will be played in Oxford on Friday and Saturday.
tj790511@ohiou.edu
