Sports
Ohio Soccer To Make Two National Broadcast Appearances
By: Kellen Becoats
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The Ohio University soccer team will make two national broadcast appearances in 2014, with its matches against the University of Kentucky and rival Miami University being streamed live on SEC Network + and NSCAATV, respectively.
The Kentucky match on Aug. 31, in Lexington, Ky., marks the the fifth time the programs have met and will be the first time Ohio coach Aaron Rodgers faces his former employer. Rodgers was an assistant coach at Kentucky from 2009-12.
Now entering his second season as the Ohio coach, Rodgers aided the Wildcats to a 42-30-5 record during his stay and helped bring in the No. 6 recruiting class in the nation prior to the 2012 season, according to TopDrawerSoccer.com.
The match against Miami has been marked as NSCAATV’s College Game of the Week and will take place on Oct. 12 at Chessa field.
The last match between the MAC East Division arch rivals ended in a 1-1 draw in Oxford, Ohio, on Oct. 4, 2013.
The Bobcats host UNC Greensboro on Aug. 14 in a home exhibition match before opening up the regular season against Butler and Purdue at the Boilermaker Challenege Cup in West Lafayette, Ind. The tournament will be held from Aug. 22 to Aug. 24 with Ohio playing the Bulldogs on Friday before taking on the hosts two days later.
The Bobcats finished the 2013 regular season with a 7-7-5 record, their first non-losing record since 2009. Ohio also posted five road victories — the most wins away from Chessa Field in almost a decade — and recorded 26 goals, the program’s greatest tally in ten years.
SEC Network + — streamed exclusively through WatchESPN — is set to cover more than 550 games ranging across multiple sports and all of the Southeastern Conference member schools. This is the first year that the streaming technology will be used in conjunction with WatchESPN. The service is available on user’s laptops, desktops, iOS and Android phones and tablets via the WatchESPN app.
NSCAATV is in its second year as an arm of the National Soccer Coaches Association of America and exists primarily to promote and broadcast college soccer across numerous divisions and conferences. The program will cover up to 20 NCAA Division I college soccer games and multiple NCAA Division II, Division III and NAIA games.