Plenty of green jerseys will be on display this afternoon at Chessa Field, and on this green day, the anthem might as well be “Wake Me Up When September Ends.”
The Bobcats’ match against Marshall is their only home contest in September. Ohio U. will play five consecutive road matches before returning to Athens Oct. 1. But the long string of road games does not alarm coach Stacy Strauss.
“It’s something that we’ve taken pride in, in the past,” she said. “It actually helps us in some ways to get off campus, and we can keep their minds on what it is that we’re doing at the time.”
Ohio was 5-4-1 away from Athens last year, including 5-1-1 on the road in the Mid-American Conference.
The Bobcats opened the regular season with three out-of-state road games. They started with a 2-0 win in Pittsburgh Aug. 22. The win marked the first time a visiting team scored two goals on the Panthers’ home field in two years. No team outside the Big East had accomplished the feat since 2005.
But Ohio has not scored since then. A weekend trip to Columbia, S.C., yielded 180 minutes of shutout soccer as both Bucknell and South Carolina sent Ohio home empty-handed.
“I thought we lacked a little bit of intensity, a little bit of commitment to do whatever it takes to earn the shutout,” Strauss said.
The Bobcats have not played in 10 days since the 2-0 loss to the Gamecocks, who were ranked 13th in the nation at the time. Strauss said her squad has used the unusually long break to refocus.
“We have really challenged the players mentally and physically,” she said. “I thought we made strides in our fitness and our organization and the mental toughness of our players as well.”
Defeating the Herd (2-1-2) will require Ohio’s offense and defense to be top-notch. Marshall has scored 10 times in five games and has not allowed a goal during its last 3 hours, 33 minutes of play.
The Bobcats will need another solid outing from freshman goalkeeper Mattie Liston to keep Marshall off the scoreboard. Liston notched a shutout in her first collegiate match and has stopped 21 of the 24 shots on net she has faced.
“Mattie, for a player of her age, is very composed,” Strauss said. “She’s very confident. She’s not afraid to organize and direct her teammates, which is critical for goalkeepers at this level to do.”
Securing a win against the Herd would help the Bobcats gain momentum before playing five road games in four states throughout the rest of the month. It would also help Ohio remove the long-lasting aftertaste of defeat.
“It’s been a long time to sit on two losses, so I really think we need to come at them and do whatever it takes to get the win,” Strauss said.
“We need to focus on ourselves first and foremost and just ensure that we’re playing our best, and that should take care of whatever Marshall’s doing.”