Winning can be a curse.
Great performance is risky business. All it does is make people expect you to do it again. High expectations equal high pressure.
Case in point: the Ohio soccer team. After posting a 15-5-2 record and reaching the Mid-American Conference Tournament final last year, the Bobcats were picked before this season by MAC coaches to win the conference.
Coach Stacy Strauss said in August the team would ignore outside expectations, so as not to become overconfident. She knew the competitive MAC season would not be a cakewalk.
Sadly, that notion could not have been more right. The Bobcats stand at 2-5-1 in the MAC, and winning the conference is no longer mathematically possible. In fact, Ohio is five points out of qualifying for the conference tournament with four games left.
But whose fault is it? Have the Bobcats flat-out flopped? Or were the MAC coaches unwittingly placing a curse upon Ohio by picking it to win?
One can make an argument either way.
Look only to the Ohio volleyball team. Picked to win the MAC East, they're 14-3 overall, 5-0 in the MAC and listed on a national poll. No falling short of expectations there. The volleyball squad is proof that living up to high standards is indeed possible.
But on the other hand, the soccer team has had its share of unforeseeable bad luck.
For example, last year's second-team All-MAC sweeper Crystal Reed is sitting out the season with a medical red shirt due to a case of mononucleosis. Only now is the Ohio backfield again playing in full sync with her absence.
Moreover, four of the Bobcat's five MAC losses have been by a one-goal margin, including two in overtime last weekend. Ohio is a talented team and is playing well, but it's falling just short of the results it wants.
However, hope is not lost. The Bobcats play their final four conference games at home. They're 9-2-2 at Chessa Field in the last two seasons.
And major turnarounds are not unheard of. Consider last season's Ohio men's basketball team. MAC preseason favorites but thoroughly underwhelming for most of the season (sound familiar?), the team finished strong, winning five of its last seven and narrowly missing the MAC Tournament final.
But statistics and outside factors aside, the strongest reason to keep faith in the Ohio soccer team is the confidence the team members have in themselves, despite the challenge they now face.
After yet another heartbreaker on Sunday, a 2-1 overtime loss to Eastern Michigan, Strauss and the players with whom this reporter spoke were all in a remarkably positive mood. They said they're playing better now than they have been all year.
This is coming from a team that should be battered and broken after a season that has gone so differently than expected. Their perseverance and resolve is truly impressive.
Friday at 4 p.m. the Bobcats play that team from Oxford that we all love to hate, so get your rear end out to Chessa Field.
You can expect a great game.
17 Archives
Joe Rominiecki
