Sports
Ohio Gets First Win Over an ACC Opponent since 2007
By: Russ Heltman
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Antonio Campbell lobbed it up and Kenny Kaminski hammered it home in Ohio’s 67-61 road victory over the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets.
Ohio shelved their early season struggles from the free throw line in the final minutes and added a Campbell dunk to close out the Yellow Jackets. Forty combined points from the experienced talents of Campbell and Kaminski led the Bobcats to victory.
Campbell tilted the scale his way to the tune of 25 points on 10-17 shooting, grabbing 12 boards in the process. Kaminski, though, lit it up from downtown in the second half, finishing with 15 points on 5-8 shooting from deep.
“We’ve got a really veteran team,” Bobcats head coach Saul Phillips said after the win. “I think you’ve got a bunch of guys on the other side getting to know each other, going through it before helped us a lot there,”
The Yellow Jackets countered Ohio with their own scoring duo of Ben Lammers, and Tadric Jackson. Lammers gave the Bobcats interior defense fits all night, dropping 22 points on 9-19 shooting. He also snagged 11 rebounds to complete his double-double, while Jackson stroked the ball from downtown to the tune of 17 points.
Jaaron Simmons kick started his season and showed he is completely healthy after tweaking his leg in the season opener against Southern. He got to the hoop with efficiency and dropped in a few three balls, ending the night with 17 points. Simmons just narrowly missed out on a double-double, dishing out nine assists on the night.
The road trip really seemed to have an affect on the rest of the team as only two other Bobcats scored a basket in this contest. Most noteworthy was the zero points scored by the Bobcat bench. Jordan Dartis’s four points and Gavin Block’s six points were the only contributions to the scoring parade put on by the three players mentioned.
This matchup confronted Ohio with their first defensive grind of the season in a game where they shot 41 percent from the floor to Georgia Tech’s 33 percent mark. Ohio did a fantastic job guarding Yellow Jacket standout Josh Okogie, holding him to five points on 2-13 shooting.
“We really tried to make sure our help defense was a little exaggerated, but it was just as important to put bodies in front of him in transition,” Phillips said.
This is the first time the Bobcats have beaten an Atlantic Coast Conference team since 2007 when they beat Maryland, who has since left the ACC for the Big 10. This marked the second time in history that Ohio and Georgia Tech have faced one another. The first meeting occurred in the 1960 NCAA Tournament Sweet Sixteen where the Bobcats fell to 57-54.
Ohio now has a week-long break before they try too complete the sweep of the Global Sports Shootout in next Friday’s matchup against Tennessee Tech in the Convocation Center.