After a frustrating Friday night loss to Jamestown, Ohio looked to bring a higher intensity and a bit more luck into Saturday’s rematch.
The Bobcats brought the former but still couldn’t find the latter, which only magnified the confusion that carried over from the previous night. No. 3 Ohio (4-2-0) fell to No. 14 Jamestown (3-3-0) 3-1 at Bird Arena on Saturday — despite outshooting the Jimmies 47-22.
The pair of weekend losses was just the second time Ohio dropped back-to-back games in regulation in the past two seasons. The Bobcats did it once last season.
“I thought we came out flying,” coach Sean Hogan said. “We’re a young team this year, and we've got to learn from every mistake and every game and continue to get better. It’s a learning process for sure.”
Jamestown goalie Tallon Kramer stifled Ohio and allowed just two goals Friday, despite facing 45 shots on goal from the Bobcats. With the Jimmies playing their other goalie, Tyson Brouwer, in net Saturday, Ohio hoped for a change in fortunes.
But there was no shift in such luck for the Bobcats, who gave Brouwer the same offensive pressure as Kramer but were met with the same amount of letdowns.
Ohio tried to change its plan of attack on the goalies by creating more traffic and sending more forward to the net to screen the goalie's vision, but nothing Ohio seemed to implement worked this weekend.
“It gets to a point when we have 30 more shots than them; it gets super frustrating,” forward Garrett Elmore said. “Things didn’t go our way.”
In the second period of Saturday’s contest, forward Cody Black fed Elmore with a pass off a two-on-one rush. With an open net in front of him, Elmore shot it off the tip of Brouwer’s lunging stick, re-directing the puck over the net.
The sequence epitomized Ohio’s weekend.
“I had a wide-open net and I saw (Brouwer) coming across,” Elmore said. “I knew he doesn’t use his blocker well, but I shot it and hit his (stick) knob.”
Elmore made a large circle with his hand to describe the roll of tape that covered the tip of Brouwer’s stick and denied him scoring his fourth goal of the season.
“He’s got the stick and (the knob) is about that thick, (the puck) nicked it and went right above the net,” he said.
The unlucky moment wasn’t the only bad break Elmore had on Saturday. The sophomore had another chance to score in the third period.
“I was coming down wide one time and I shot and it nicked his shoulder,” Elmore said. “It’s just stuff like that. … If I had went an inch higher.”
