Ohio (4-7) showcased a lot of potential in its first match of the Green and White Invitational, which ended in a sweep against Liberty (6-6). The theme of the match was growth, however, with every young team, growth comes with growing pains.
Ohio recorded 68 total attacking and serving errors over two games Saturday, struggling to find any consistency offensively as the team stifled its runs with mistakes of its own.
“We didn’t execute,” Ohio coach Geoff Carlston said. “We need to be better when it's 23 all and 26 all, and we were at one point earlier in the season. You need to win the 2-point sets.”
Every set Ohio lost, except for its first against Eastern Kentucky (9-4), ended either 25-23 or 26-24. Ultimately, untimely errors would be the deciding factor keeping Ohio from swinging those close sets in its favor.
In the first set of Ohio’s first match against Oakland (4-8), the point that got Ohio’s opponent to set point and the point that won it both came off errors. In the second set, a bad set by Anna Kharchynska put the Golden Grizzlies at match point, allowing sophomore outside hitter Gentry Brown to seal it.
Ohio would win the third set in dominant fashion, leading by as much as 13 points when two freshmen, Bryn Janke and Darbi Ricketts, connected to make the score 23-10. The differentiating factor was that Ohio committed just eight errors; a number that could still stand to improve, but one that was comparably low for the night.
In the fourth set, it was back to the ways of the first two sets, as Ohio contributed four consecutive attacking errors to help Oakland jump out to a 5-1 lead. The Bobcats would only be able to tie, never leading, as two service errors put the stamp on the Golden Grizzlies’ victory.
“Let’s be honest, part of it is we have almost entirely freshmen and sophomores on the floor,” Carlston said. “... but that excuse gets pretty tiring, so we have to go through the fire.”
The fire continued to burn Ohio through its second match against Eastern Kentucky. Overall, it was an error-riddled game from both teams involved, but Ohio edged out its opponent in both attacking errors (20 to 17) and service errors (10 to 6).
Five of the Colonel’s first seven points came from Bobcat errors, allowing them to jump out to a 7-3 lead, forcing a timeout from Carlston.
“There’s times to just live another day, not blasting the other team,” Carlston said. “I think just maturation of our overall game; when to go for it, when to hold back a little bit … just doing what we’re doing a lot better.”
While it wasn’t errors that secured the first-set victory for Eastern Kentucky, it was errors that put Ohio’s opponent in position to win. However, in the second set, as the Colonels went from 16 points to 28, it would be the Bobcats with eight errors along the way, giving the Colonels a 2-0 lead.
In the final set, Ohio would find one more error committed in its favor than committed against, tallying eight to Eastern Kentucky’s nine. The timing of the mistakes, though, would be the differentiating factor.
With a 21-19 lead, having rallied four straight points in the most crucial part of the game, a service error from Ricketts would bring the lead back to one, and put serving honors in possession of the Colonels. That error would kickstart a 6-2 run for Eastern Kentucky, including an attacking error from Kam Hunt to get to match point, giving Ohio its second loss of the weekend.
