Sports
Ohio Bests No. 15 Wake Forest in Double Overtime
By: Eli Kepner
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Two halves and one overtime period were not enough to settle things between the Ohio Bobcats and the Wake Forest Demon Deacons during Wednesday night’s contest at Kentner Stadium in Winston-Salem, NC. Bobcat junior Jessica Jue hammered home the decisive goal late in the second overtime period to give the Bobcats the 3-2 (2OT) victory.
Ohio opened the game with some very active and energetic play, and slightly overwhelmed the host Demon Deacons. 13 minutes into the contest Ohio sophomore Ashley Cureton got the scoring started for the evening with a shot fired past the Wake Forest keeper. As if this wasn’t enough, the Bobcats found the back of the net again just one minute later, this time it was Jue getting her first goal of what would be a big evening for the junior. When it looked like Ohio was ready to blow the game open, Jess McFayden put in a huge goal for the hosts to bring them back in the game at the 21st minute. The Bobcats would eventually take this 2-1 lead into the locker room at the half.
Wake Forest began to come alive and play like the team that was ranked in the top 15 nationally coming out of the gates in the second half. The Demon Deacon attack kept the Bobcats on their heels and forced four saves out of Ohio sophomore keeper Brittany Walker. However at the 64th minute it was McFayden again finding the back of the net for the Deacons and squaring the contest up at two a piece just before the final horn.
The first overtime period also did not look good for the Bobcats as the hosts continued their aggressive and controlling play. In this period, Wake outshot the ‘Cats 6-0 and also had five corners to Ohio’s zero. However none of the Deacon’s shots were on cage as the Bobcat defenders played valiantly in front of Walker.
After the scoreless first overtime period Jue came up huge for her team and struck in the goal to give the Bobcats arguably their biggest win of the season on the road over the 15th ranked Demon Deacons.
Walker finished the game with six saves, and Ohio senior Taylor Brown also had a big day, picking up two assists and racking up a team leading five shots, with two of them being on goal.
The big win improves the ‘Cats to 6-5 on the season. Ohio returns to action Saturday at 1 p.m. in Athens for a conference contest with the Ball State Cardinals.