Ohio plays Friday night to end its non-conference campaign.
A week after Ohio coach Aaron Rodgers said he doesn’t schedule easy matches for easy points, his team closes the non-conference portion of its season with a team he views as a role model — Dayton.
Keeping their record aside, the Flyers have consistently been a regional, dominant power in the Atlantic 10 Conference, where they finished top of the league at the end of the 2013 regular season.
That sort of success is exactly the benchmark Rodgers wants to bring to Athens, while he slowly inches closer to transforming Ohio into a top-50 team in the nation and a powerhouse in the Mid-American Conference.
“They’re a fantastic team,” Rodgers said, citing past conference titles and NCAA appearances as evidence. “But it’s about us and we need to concentrate on ourselves on how we want to play and we want to take the game to them.”
The attacking style Rodgers has preached of late is slowly paying off for his side, which enters the Friday afternoon fixture with two consecutive wins at home.
Those last two results have been more than pats on the back for the Bobcats — they’ve been morale boosters for a team that has dominated play, but is gun-shy in front of the goal.
Sophomore forward Alexis Milesky leads Ohio up front with three goals this season, which are all game-winners, tying her for sixth in the country in that category.
Milesky has pestered opposition’s backlines and created chances for teammates, setting up fellow forward junior Carly Manso, who leads the team with 14 shots.
“Dayton has soccer and that’s about it,” Milesky said. “It’s a night time game and it’s gonna be intense. I would compare it to how football players react to playing under the lights.”
What’s made this contest difficult for Ohio to get a read on is the brutal schedule the Flyers have played to this point.
A team coming off four consecutive losses is typically an indicator that they’ve struggled and allowed teams to get behind and score.
In its last match, Dayton lost 8-0 to Stanford, the No. 4 program in the country. The match before, the Flyers lost 1-0 to Santa Clara, which was recently ranked No. 24 last week.
The level of competition Dayton lines up against is a step above the quality of competition Ohio has competed with to this point. Rodgers wasn’t lying when he said he wants to play competition that will payoff in the long run.
A side such as Dayton, which is hungry for its first win in five matches, will be a difficult challenge for an Ohio team that has only just sorted out a lot of its concerns earlier this season.
“It’s going to be tough,” Milesky said. “It’s another team, so we’ll have to step up and play our game, and take it just like any other.”
@charliehatch_
gh181212@ohiou.edu
