The Bobcats lost a five-set match at Northwestern on Thursday evening.
In the final weekend of the non-conference season, Ohio was looking for their one statement win out of their tough schedule.
Unfortunately for the Bobcats, they were not able to seize the opportunity as Northwestern edged Ohio in five sets. It was like a classic boxing match whenever the Wildcats would punch the Bobcats were always able to come back with a counterpunch of their own. Neither team was able to land the knockout blow all night as the game reached the fifth and decisive set.
In the final set of this bout, both teams came out swinging as both teams refused to loose. Once again, the teams would trade leads as Ohio jumped out to an early 8-7 lead before Northwestern grabbed it right back at 11-9. The Bobcats responded to take what seemed to be a decisive 15-14 lead as they were only one point away from victory. Back against the wall, the Wildcats finally landed the knockdown punch tallying the final three points to win 17-15.
From the start both teams were even as although Northwestern lead most of the first set, Ohio always found a way to come back to tie the game up. This especially held true at the end of the set as at 18-17 Wildcats, the teams would go on to trade points until the game was 24-23 Ohio. Here is where the host Northwestern gained control for good as like the fifth set they grabbed the final three points taking the set 26-24.
Ohio was able to key in on Northwestern’s best attacking player, freshman outside hitter Symone Abbott, holding her to a .019 attacking percentage for the match. However, the Bobcats were not able to stop senior outside Yewande Akanbi who had 21 kills on the night while only having two attacking errors.
The Bobcats were led by the efforts of their two outside hitters in senior Kelly Lameberti and freshman Jaime Kosiorek. Lamberti tallied 23 kills while Kosiorek had 21 of her own. The pair took turns scoring in spurts for Ohio, but in the end neither was enough to carry the team past the Wildcats.
After the tough five set loss, the Bobcats will turn their attention to UW-Green Bay on Friday. The Phoenix are quite a step down in competition from the Wildcats as they struggled to finish above the .500 mark a season ago. This year hasn’t been much better for Green Bay who has only chalked up two wins so far this season as they regularly loose in straight set fashion.
This is Ohio’s final non-conference game of the season before turning their attentions to Mid-American Conference play. The Bobcats will look to put on a good performance after the crushing loss to Northwestern Thursday evening.
ak840511@ohio.edu
