Ohio State excellence is not exclusive to the football field or the basketball court. Around the Oval is our way of keeping you informed of the amazing things happening with the other 34 varsity sports on campus.
Buckeyes beat back-to-back champs
The big story of the weekend is the men's lacrosse team's 16-11 upset of the back-to-back national champion Duke Blue Devils.
Ohio State came into this game as definitive underdogs facing a high powered Duke offense led by one of the nation's premier players in senior midfielder Myles Jones in Durham, where Duke had not lost a tournament game since 1995.
The Buckeyes, and the Big Ten Conference as a whole, were not given much respect heading into the weekend.
(sound familiar?)
Again, the "experts" were wrong. If you hadn't been told differently, you would have thought the Buckeyes were the far superior team. They controlled tempo, held the Duke offense to their lowest goal total since an early season loss to top-ranked Syracuse, and were seemingly scoring at will. Duke held an early 3-1 lead, but after that Ohio State pulled away and never looked back.
The Buckeyes played a nearly perfect game all-around. On the offensive side, senior David Planning had a career high six goals, junior Carter Brown had four, and freshman Colin Chell had three. The team combined for a season high 16 goals total. Defensively, sophomore goalie Tom Carey had a career high 15 saves, keeping the Buckeyes in the game early with five saves in the first quarter and halting any chance at a Duke comeback with six saves in the fourth quarter.
The Buckeyes have a tough match-up in the NCAA Quarterfinals next weekend against fifth-ranked Denver. Denver has only two losses on the season, but one of those losses came at the hands of the Buckeyes. This time of course, the stakes are much higher as the winner gets a place in the Final Four.
It's also worth noting that the other two Big Ten teams in the tournament, Maryland and Johns Hopkins, also advanced. This means that the conference that didn't deserve three teams in the tournament currently makes up just under half of the remaining field.
(Jim Delaney happy-dance dot gif)
men's tennis survives and advances
The men's tennis team began NCAA Tournament play this weekend, hosting their first and second round matches against Buffalo and Vanderbilt.
Quite simply, they dominated.
The Buckeyes swept both Buffalo and Vanderbilt 4-0, advancing to the Sweet Sixteen for the 10th straight year. It also marked the team's 20th straight NCAA home win.
The Buckeyes will head to Waco to face Texas A&M in their Sweet Sixteen match Thursday- a rematch of a regular season meeting. As I mentioned last week, the Aggies are the only team in Ohio State's bracket to have defeated them during the regular season. Texas A&M bested Ty Tucker's squad early in the season in a very close 4-3 match, with the doubles point being the difference.
Despite the outcome of the first meeting, this is a very winnable match for the Buckeyes. The Buckeye lineup is not quite the same this time around, with Torpegaard and Diaz switching courts, and Pollanen playing as apposed to Mendez. With the form the team is currently in and the lineup change since the last match, the Buckeyes have a real chance to win and advance to the Elite Eight.
softball breaks records
Just two weeks after setting a new single game runs record against Northwestern, the Buckeye softball team rewrote the record books yet again with a 24-1 beat down of Indiana in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament.
The 24 runs scored set a new single game school record, topping the 20 run record set two weeks before. The 26 hits in the game were also good for a single game team record, and junior Erika Leonard also set an all-time single game record with her 10 RBIs. This all happened in just 5 innings, as the game was called and Indiana was granted mercy.
Unfortunately, the Buckeyes could not ride the momentum very far. They were defeated in the next game by Nebraska 5-2, ending their season.
The team finished the year with some impressive, record setting numbers.
The following are new Ohio State records:
- Season Team Batting Average: .348
- Most Runs in a Season: 380
- Most Home Runs in a Season: 75
Kyle Snyder beats a gold medalist
Freshman wrestler Kyle Snyder competed in the U.S. Open Championships this weekend in Las Vegas, and he walked away with some hardware.
The true-freshmen beat 2012 Olympic Gold Medalist Jake Varner in the championship match to become a U.S. Open National Champion. In addition, he was voted the "Most Outstanding Wrestler" at the tournament.
Kyle Snyder!!!!!!! True Freshman Kyle Snyder upends Olympic Champion Jake Varner for US Open Title!!!!!!
— Ohio State Wrestling (@wrestlingbucks) May 10, 2015
seasons come to a close
Unfortunately, not every Buckeye team was able to survive and advance. The following teams saw their season come to a close this weekend:
- Women's golf finished seventh in their NCAA regional. They needed to finish in the top-six to advance
- Women's tennis lost to Oklahoma in the first round of the NCAA Tournament with a score of 4-3
- Women's lacrosse fell to Notre Dame in the first round of the NCAA Tournament 13-11
- Softball lost to Nebraska in the second round of the B1G Tournament, 5-2
Other Scores and News
- Baseball dropped series to Maryland losing 2 of 3 games
What's Happening This Week
- Rowing competes for a Big Ten Championship this weekend
- Men and women's track compete in the B1G Championship meet this weekend
- Men's golf competes in their NCAA regional starting Thursday
- Men's lacrosse plays Denver in NCAA Quarterfinal Saturday at 5:30 p.m.
- Men's tennis faces Texas A&M in NCAA Sweet Sixteen Thursday
- Baseball plays Youngstown State Tuesday, then ends their regular season with a series at Indiana this weekend
2014-15 'Ship Count
- Football
- Wrestling
- Pistol
- Synchronized Swimming
