After dropping their home opener, the Bobcats rebounded to grab a straight set win over Virginia Commonwealth.
Ohio controlled the match from the beginning of the first set on its way to a straight-set win.
The first one set the tempo for what would be a dominant day for the Bobcats. They rode the momentum of senior outside hitter Kelly Lamberti who had 15 kills on the day nine of which came in the final set.
The duo of Lamberti and junior setter Abby Gilleland was on display against the Rams, as Gilleland kept feeding Lamberti’s hot hand. On the day, Gilleland recorded 33 assists to go along with four strategically placed kills.
“When Abby knows that Kelly is starting to heat up a little bit she’s going to get her more swings,” coach Deane Webb said. “Kelly took some very intelligent swings not always just trying to crush the ball, but finding some deep seams to attack into. There were a couple of things in their defense that gave us some holes for our outsides to attack into and Kelly did a good job of that.”
The veteran laden Ohio roster showed their dominance against a VCU team that has eight freshmen on the roster. This is a much different Ram team then a season ago when they beat the Bobcats 3-1 in the final game of the regular season.
The Bobcats could have really ran away with this one had they have limited their errors both on attacks and from the service line. Ohio compiled 15 service errors to go along with their 17 attacking errors something they’ll have to clean up before their final match of the Baymont Inn Invitational against Virginia Tech.
“That’s just all focus,” Lamberti said. “It is definitely a lot of the tossing that we need to work on, but we’ll fix that before tonight’s game.”
In their final game of the weekend, the Bobcats take on Virginia Tech who like Ohio split their first two games of the tournament. The Hokies recorded a straight set victory over VCU Friday before falling to Texas A&M in three sets earlier today.
Virginia Tech runs a different style of offense than the other teams do as they attack more behind the setter.
“Virginia Tech is the most balanced team we’ll play in this tournament,” Webb said. “They can score from more places with more people than the other two teams we’ve played.”
