Ohio gave the Virginia Military Institute a rude welcome to Athens Sunday afternoon with a dominant 11-0 victory, the largest in program history. This win is Ohio's second in a row and it also pushes VMI to losing 6-0 on the season.
In a game that was an offensive onslaught, Ohio remained patient and selfless throughout. There were a total of eight different goal scorers from Ohio along with four different players who notched assists. Ohio dominated the possession as its offense took 23 shots, 17 on goal compared to VMI's four, with one on goal.
Freshman Eve Berish, junior Payton Rigg and freshman Scout Murray all scored two goals Sunday. For Berish and Murray, it was their first goals for the Bobcats and it was Rigg's first goals of the season.
Junior Shae Robertson, freshman Maia Kaufman and junior Isabella Ginocchi all scored a goal apiece as well. Graduate student Abby Townsend continued her scorching start to the season as she also added a goal and two assists in 55 minutes of play.
The story from this game, however, came from junior forward Aubrey Rea, who had a goal and an assist in her first start of the season.
"It's pretty good," Rea said with a big grin when asked about her team, "We have a good dynamic where we can push each other on the field and then off the field, we are best friends."
Rea talked about how this performance helped her confidence moving forward into the season. Head coach Aaron Rodgers, he was very pleased with not only Rea's performance, but also the entire team.
"She brings a great dimension to us," Rodgers said, "In a sense that she is super technical. She holds the ball up really well. She passes really well and that is something that really helps in our build up."
"It's good to get a good performance," Coach Rodgers added on the team's performance, "One of the things going into the game was we wanted to be intense for the 90 minutes and we wanted to play quickly.
When asked about the freshman on the team Rodgers was very pleased as well.
"I think gaining college experience is really important as we move on, especially as we get into conference and we want to call on them to come in or to start to contribute. It was an amazing performance today."
The Bobcats return to action on Thursday at 7 p.m. in Highland Heights, Kentucky against Northern Kentucky.
