After losing in the MAC Championship, Ohio will look to move on from a solid senior class and up and down season
When the media asked coach Neil Macmillan how he felt about moving forward without his senior class, he didn’t want to put too much thought into it.
Throughout a 6-11 season, seniors like Lauryl Desch, Brittany Walker and Caelyn Hartley helped push the Bobcats to their first appearance in the Mid-American Conference Championship game since 2011.
After a 2-0 loss to Kent State at Murphy-Mellis Field, Macmillan and the Bobcats walked onto the team bus and drove into the offseason, not wanting to think about life without some valuable players.
“To move on from this senior class, who are wonderful, is bit hard to do right now,” Macmillan said after Ohio’s loss. “Let’s think about them and celebrate them, and not worry about what’s going to happen in the future.”
Throughout the year, the Bobcats reiterated they were a relatively young team and with that, growing pains arose.
In the beginning of the year, Ohio struggled offensively by only scoring four goals in its first 10 games. However, Ohio found some offensive consistency by scoring 14 of its 18 goals in the last eight games.
Macmillan and sophomore Kristen Buchanan said it took time to find correct positioning, and the forward line started to create space for one another toward the end of the season.
“(At the beginning of the season) we were learning to play with each other and learning where each player plays,” Buchanan said. “And now that we have that figured out, we’re going into each game stronger and stronger.”
Not only did some inexperience affect Ohio early on, but also playing ranked teams made its record look worse than how it really played.
Throughout the season, Ohio faced teams ranked in the top 20 like Syracuse, Indiana, Louisville and Wake Forest. Despite going 1-8 in non-conference games, Ohio went 5-3 against MAC opponents.
“You have to go into those games thinking you’re going to get a result out of them, and we certainly believe that,” Macmillan said. “If you’re going to play with the best teams, we’ve got to be more decisive in front of the goal.”
Moving forward, the Bobcats will have some skill positions to fill.
Redshirt sophomore Luna Trucco will anchor the defense in goal next year, after playing just four games the past two seasons.
Sophomores Hannah Kingsbury, Vicky Nase and Buchanan will also have a hand in the rebuilding process, as Buchanan scored the winning goal in Ohio’s shootout win over Central Michigan in the MAC Tournament Semifinals.
Junior Adele Sammons will look to maintain some scoring duties. Ohio’s leading scorer, Desch, will graduate, as for the second time in two years, Ohio’s leading scorer will leave the unit.
“It means a lot to be a Bobcat,” Desch said. “It’s something that no one can take away from you. It’s the time spent, the people you met, it’s your life, it’s your family. For me, the whole process is finding who I am, finding who I want to be, along with people who are going to support me.”
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