As the Bobcats prepare to begin their Mid-American Conference schedule this weekend at both Bowling Green and Miami, the team is hopeful to continue its recent dominance in the East Division.
Ohio has clinched the MAC East regular season title for nine consecutive seasons, also having won the postseason tournament in seven of those nine campaigns. But, the team did exit the tournament in the semifinals last year.
In this year’s preseason polls, the Bobcats were selected once again to win the MAC East Division, earning 11 of 12 first place votes. Three players — Kelly Lamberti, Chelsea Bilger and Lexie Hartnett — were also selected to the preseason All-MAC team.
With Ohio’s supremacy in the conference for what is now a decade, an outsider might select the Bobcats as the team to beat in the division. But, each season, the squad must take the court and earn their way back to the top of the rankings.
Coach Ryan Theis is ready to begin another year in the conference, after the Bobcats wrapped up their non-conference schedule this past weekend going 1-2 on a road trip through North Carolina.
Although Theis did not take the helm at Ohio until 2008, he has continued the program’s success in the regular season and has won three tournament championships.
Ohio has gone 129-15 in the last nine seasons, including a three-year stretch from 2004 to 2006 where the team did not lose a single match in conference play.
No other MAC East team has recorded double-digit conference wins since the 2009 season, when Miami finished 11-5, four matches behind the Bobcats in the standings.
However, Ohio has not won the MAC outright in the regular season since 2009.
“Our first goal is to win the conference outright, and we have to earn it,” Theis said. “When we play everyone in the MAC East, typically their view is that one of their biggest games of the season is Ohio.”
Ohio’s biggest contenders in the MAC since 2009 have been Ball State, Northern Illinois and Western Michigan, which all have better records in conference play than the Bobcats, but are members of the West Division.
With the recent success of the program in the conference, players may be influenced to feel the need to continue the winning ways with the amount of prestige gained from winning.
“It is great to come in the locker room and see all the banners on the wall. You really want to be a part of that,” said middle blocker Serena Warner. “There isn’t pressure to continue the winning; it’s more of a standard.”
Warner said the team is proud of winning and is not just striving for conference championships, hoping but to remain consistent this season.
Ohio will play its next 16 matches against MAC teams before the MAC Tournament begins Nov. 16 in Geneva, Ohio.
Until then, the Bobcats will remain optimistic that the streak of division titles will not come to an end anytime soon.
cl1027410@ohiou.edu
