The Bobcats swept Austin Peay and VCU to start the season, but suffer the same fate at the hands of Purdue in Indiana.
Coach Deane Webb had to hide the tears in his eyes after Ohio swept Virginia Commonwealth on Sunday afternoon.
Down 11-3 during the second set, the Bobcats rallied back — with the help of a 10-6 run — to take the set and the match from the Rams.
“I don’t know if there’s a set that I’ve enjoyed more in a year-and-a-half,” Webb said.
That second set against VCU was the highlight of the Ohio’s three games at the Mortar Board Premier in West Lafayette, Indiana. Ohio earned victories against VCU and Austin Peay with consecutive sweeps, but then fell to Purdue in straight sets in front of its home crowd of about 2,500 fans.
Ohio’s lone loss on the weekend to Purdue came after Purdue squeaked out a victory in the first set, but ran away with the match with back-to-back 25-14 wins in the second and third set.
The two sweeps to begin the 2015 season, however, featured notable performances from players just beginning their collegiate career.
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In her debut, redshirt freshman middle blocker Katie Nelson notched nine kills against Austin Peay. Freshman libero Erica Walker added five served aces against VCU.
“I still have a lot of improvements to make,” Nelson said. “But it was good getting the first game jitters out of the way."
Nelson, alongside senior middle blocker Shelby Walker, was named to the All-Mortar Board Premier Team following the tournament.
Sophomore outside hitter Jaime Kosiorek and senior setter Abby Gilleland — who Webb refers to as “the regulars”— had a fine outing in Indiana.
Kosiorek had a match-high 14 kills to kick off the season against Austin Peay, while Gilleland had a double-double to begin her respective campaign.
Kosiorek still showed signs of rust though, as she had just a .128 attack percentage on the weekend, posting 14 errors.
After two big steps forward, and one step back, to their ultimate goal of a Mid-American Conference championship, Webb thinks the improvement of his younger players is the biggest takeaway from the weekend, but he still sees room for improvement.
“We’ve got to get cleaner in a lot of places,” Webb said. “We need to get production on the right. We need an opposite who can play offense and defense. We’re going to have to find that pretty quickly.”
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