Sports

Ohio Ultimate Places 15th at Easterns Qualifier

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The Bobcats came off a rather disappointing outing at the Queen City Tune Up on Feb. 8-9 with effort that could not outlast the other teams in attendance at the Easterns Qualifier.

Ohio was placed in pool D along with Williams, Delaware, Northeastern, Penn State and Virginia Tech and they went 2-2 on Saturday, while going 0-4 on Sunday to finish 15th out of 24 teams.

“We wanted to see our D line get more breaks and our O line get broken less,” sophomore captain Kelley McAndrews said. “Our goal is to play mistake-free ultimate, and this weekend we didn’t do that.”

The ‘Cats had tight contests across the board on Saturday. They started by beating Delaware by a score of 15-13, while being ahead the whole game. The team followed that with a loss against Northeastern by 2 points with a final score of 12-10.

In the afternoon, the Bobcats beat Virginia Tech 16-14 after being down at half 8-7. The team got their first lead of the contest with their 14th point. Ohio lost to Williams by a score of 15-10, never being able to mount a lead.

For the final pool game, Ohio lost to Penn State on Sunday morning by a score of 15-7. This loss caused to Bobcats to finish fourth in the pool with a record of 2-3, placing them in the ninth place bracket, along with the third and fourth place teams from each pool.

In the bracket, the ‘Cats faced Georgetown and lost 12-8. They never held the lead in the game. Because of the loss, Ohio was sent to the 13th place bracket where they could not muster better play. Ohio lost to Auburn 12-11, even after being up until the final point.

To finish out the day, the Bobcats were set against Ohio State. They decided to forfeit due to lingering injuries and overall fatigue.
The Bobcats went 2-6 on the weekend, seeming to not have the right mentality from the start.

“We weren’t mentally or physically prepared to run with the teams at EQ,” McAndrews said. “We went in expecting weaker competition than Queen City, but the other teams there wanted to win more than we did.”

The team does have plans to improve before their next tournament, and they hope to fare better.

“We will definitely be looking to work on our man defense, ability to beat the Samba mark and conditioning,” McAndrews said. “In addition, I think it will be very important in the next few weeks to build a culture of intensity on the team.”

Although the team has not had a tremendous amount of success to begin its 2014 campaign, Ohio has had some bright spots in its otherwise disappointing season so far.

“Alex Doksa and Lloyd Furuta both played exceptionally well, and Cameron Haldin was our rookie MVP for the weekend. Cody Pettit was a huge force on the field as always,” McAndrews said. “Our rookies really stepped up and gave our starters some much needed rest during late games on Saturday and Sunday.”

The Bobcats have a three week break before they return to action at the College Terminus Tournament in Atlanta, March 15-16.