Sports
Ohio Volleyball wilts under the pressure and falls to Eastern Illinois
By: Marc Goldstein
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ATHENS, Ohio (WOUB) — Heading into the final match of the Bobcat Invitational, Ohio (1-2) had high hopes for ending the weekend with a winning record despite a difficult loss Saturday to Iowa State. Whether it was the fact that it was playing in its third match in as many days causing fatigue or something else, Ohio looked completely shell shocked against Eastern Illinois (2-0), leading to the former getting swept off its home floor Sunday afternoon.
For the beginning of the match, the teams traded points, but the errors quickly began to pile up for Ohio as it gifted Eastern Illinois its first three points with two service errors and an attack error. Nonetheless, the Bobcats had a pair of kills from Emily Waddell to put them on top 4-3 early in the match. The back-and-forth action persisted, but Eastern Illinois emerged with a meager three-point lead, 15-12, midway through the set.
Eastern Illinois would put the squeeze on Ohio, limiting its own errors while the Bobcats continued to be sloppy. Eastern Illinois widen the gap while closing in on the set victory. Eventually, Eastern Illinois would slam the door on the Ohio comeback attempt, winning the first set 25-21.
The errors were plentiful for Ohio in the first set as eight serves did not cross and a number of other attack errors made it difficult for a comeback to happen.
The second set started off promisingly for the Bobcats with a quick kill by Bailey Blair. However, the inconsistencies offensively would not end there. The positive plays by the Bobcats would be immediately followed by a negative one. For example, Gentry Brown lined an ace right onto the tape for a Bobcat point, but her next serve was only caught by the net, all but nullifying the ace in the process. Brown was far from the only culprit, though, and did have a number of kills.
The second set continued in the same way as the first with the errors piling up for Ohio and Eastern Illinois keeping its play relatively clean. Ohio found itself down by as much as 18-13 and made a valiant comeback attempt. Ultimately, that was all for naught as Eastern Illinois held on to win the set by a score of 25-20.
For a change of pace, the offense began hot to start the third set. Ohio sprinted out to a 6-1 lead before a timeout was called by Eastern Illinois. That seemed to fix things for Eastern Illinois as it made a slow, gradual climb back into the set. Eventually, the 16-9 lead for Ohio was trimmed all the way down to an 18-18 tie. The Bobcats were reeling at this point and without answers on how to stop the Eastern Illinois onslaught. The Panthers kept hammering away, ending the match with a 25-22 set win, sweeping the match.
Every comeback attempt by Ohio was immediately met with a response by Eastern Illinois. For every point scored by Ohio, two were put on the board by Eastern Illinois. Every mistake and mishit was taken advantage of as well. Simply put, Eastern Illinois was very opportunistic and minimized its own mistakes while allowing Ohio to commit a glut of errors, leading to its second straight home loss.
“I’m trying to look at this as the most positive thing ever,” Brinkman said. “We’re getting the two (home) losses of our season out of the way right now so that we don’t have any more the rest of the way. I think (the players) are pissed at themselves a little bit in the way that they competed. We’re going to get back into the gym tomorrow and get ready for next weekend, though.”
During the match, Ohio made a total of 32 errors compared to the 14 by Eastern Illinois. As Brinkman says “it is hard to win like that,” a sentiment that is likely mirrored by the players. With the massive amount of errors, offense can be hard to string together and it makes life that much harder on a team that needs to rely on clean play in order to win matches.