Sports
Ohio Trounces Lindenwood, 8-4
By: Nick Hart
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The Ohio Bobcats continued their winning ways on Saturday night by trouncing the Lindenwood Lions, 8-4, at Bird Arena.
The victory marked Ohio’s fifth consecutive win and its fourth straight against CSCHL opponents. In those four CSCHL games, the Bobcats have won by a combined margin of 25-9.
“It great to be hot. I love it,” said Ohio head coach Jonathon Sheridan with a smile. “One of our goals is to win the league championship and to do that we have to play every night and every weekend.”
Ohio got off to a quick start when Michael Harris scored just 15 seconds into the game. The goal was Harris’ third in three games, a complete 180-degree difference from his eight game goalless drought he snapped one weekend ago.
“It feels great to be scoring again,” Harris said. “Hopefully it keeps up. The first goal tonight was a little fluke, but that lit a bit of a fire underneath the team and that helped.”
The fire that burned within Ohio after Harris’ “fluke” goal propelled the team to scoring two more goals in the first six minutes of the game, giving them an early 3-0 lead.
The early lead was a luxury the Bobcats could not enjoy the previous night in their game with Lindenwood, as they had trouble solving the Lions’ starting goaltender on Friday, Linus Åhgren. However, Ohio was able to beat Saturday’s starter, Trey Flesch, three times on their first five shots of the game.
“Yeah, nobody’s complaining about that,” Harris said. “But the main thing, the main emphasis we bring every night, is put pucks on net, and the more you put on, the more are going to go in. Simple as that.”
The Bobcats kept throwing the puck on net and logged a total of 37 shots on goal in the game, and saw goals from seven different players. Nathan De La Torre was the only Bobcat to score twice in the contest.
Lindenwood pushed back late in the third period, scoring three times in the final eight minutes of the game. Though their late game effort proved to be too little too late, it left a bad taste in Sheridan’s mouth.
“I think the guys just packed it in early,” Sheridan said. “We were up, 7-1, and seven minutes to go, the guys got a little excited. I think they checked out. That’s not what you want to see. That could come to haunt us down the road with the rankings being based off of goal differential.”
The Bobcats will continue with league play next weekend when they take on the Indiana Hoosiers in a two-game weekend series. The first game of the series is scheduled for a 9:15 p.m. start at Frank Southern Ice Arena in Bloomington, Ind., on Friday, Nov. 22.