Sometimes a little bit of home cooking can bode well for a team.
In Ohio’s first home game of the regular season, Ohio earned its first win of the season against Marshall, 2-0, ending a three-game losing streak. The Bobcats scored only two goals during the slide while conceding eight goals to the opposition.
Ohio coach Stacy Strauss said she was pleased with the team’s grit and hard work coming off the losing streak.
“I’m proud of the women, I thought they did a good job to respond from Friday’s game and learned some lessons pretty quickly and had a quick turnaround,” Strauss said. “I think that shows great character and maturity that they responded well and fixed some of the errors and came out and had a solid performance today.”
Senior midfielder Cat Rogers scored a goal in the eighth minute of the game off a corner assisted by senior Veronica Rock and sophomore Annie Beard.
The Ohio defense looked sharper this game, with goalkeeper Mattie Liston making only three saves in the match, but Marshall possessed the ball more in the first half.
“We were hanging on for the last 10 minutes and if we continue to hang on for the last 10 minutes of every half of every game we’re not going to win a lot of games,” Strauss said. “So I challenged them to find the fortitude and push through and keep the ball and it was a little bit easier to do that in the second half with the substitutions. I thought they responded well to that challenge.”
Rogers scored her second goal of the game in the 76th minute on a free kick that bounced of Marshall’s wall of players and squirted past the reach of an outstretched Kearns.
“We usually have two people on every ball so they don’t know who is shooting, Rogers said. “ The wall was set that way, so I was looking at the left side of the net, but the goalie was there, so maybe the other side but I just figured to go with what I know and it ended up working out.”
mk277809@ohiou.edu
