Around The Oval

They may not get the fame (or the notoriety) the kids on the gridiron or the hardwood do, but they all work their butts off to represent the scarlet and gray on and off the field. If you're able to go on campus and check them out, do it. They deserve your support.

We'll begin our campus cruise this week by getting on the ice and checking in with the men's hockey team, who opened their season this past weekend.  

Let's do this thing, homeys.

hockey enters the fray

Don't you love how as the autumn air rolls in, sports warm up? My favorite of the "non-traditional" sports is without a doubt hockey. I never played it, because we were too poor and I never learned how to skate (seriously, I can't even rollerskate, it's embarrassing), but I always found a certain wonderful irony in the way the game melted grace with gore, violence with sportsmanship. It's a wonderful game and I am glad it's back in both the collegiate and professional arenas (The NBA? Stay gone, no one cares. Really.  No one.)

As we chronicled last week, the 2011-2012 version of the Ohio State men's hockey team dropped the puck on their season this past weekend with a two-game weekend series at home in Value City Arena against the Quinnipiac Bobcats, as they have each of the previous two seasons. 

Friday night's opener saw the Buckeyes play ten freshman, and it didn't take long for a few of them to make sure that there was no doubt whether or not they could help the hockey club. With the game tied at 1 in the third period, the Buckeyes found themselves on a 5-on-3 powerplay when freshman skater Ryan Dzingel, a 7th round pick in the 2011 NHL draft, found the back of the net 7:44 into the final period. The Bobcats would fight and claw until the final horn, but they were unable to get another puck past Ohio State's Cal Heeter, who was ridiculous in net for the Buckeyes, registering 35 saves. The Buckeyes would only get 16 shots on goal, but they made them count on their way to a 2-1 seasoning opening victory. Heeter's 35 saves marked the 22nd time in his long Buckeye career that he has recored more than 30 saves in a single contest.

The freshman Dzingel was quick to deflect any praise that might have been heaped upon him for his game-winning goal. 

"It was a weird momentum shift, getting that second penalty. The goal was one of those plays that happened so fast I don't remember the specifics. I just know we had two great passes to get it to me."

Ohio State's second year head coach Mark Osiecki definitely saw some cause for concern in his team's inability to get the puck out of their own zone, while acknowledging the stellar play of Heeter along the way. 

 "We could have been a little tougher around the net on their goal. Cal [Heeter] played extremely well, and I was happy with how we looked." 

Quinnipiac head coach Rand Pecknold also had high praise for Heeter.  

"I thought Cal Heeter was the best player on the ice tonight." 

How would Heeter respond to his season-opening workout in game two Saturday?

Well, mildly put, he struggled a bit. Ok, he struggled a lot. The Bobcats had five power-play opportunities in the first period and Heeter allowed three goals on seven shots after 11:43, and was promptly yanked for junior Brady Hjelle. Five minutes into his time in the crease, Hjelle surrendered his first goal of the year, and the Buckeyes found themselves down 4-0 with less than five minutes remaining the first period. 

The youthful Buckeyes would find a way to make it interesting. Freshman Matt Johnson put the Buckeyes on the board half-way through the second period, and captain Cory Schneider cut the Bobcat lead in half four minutes later. Ohio State finally broke through once more, this time late in the third period, as Dzingel scored his second goal in as many games with less than a minute remaining. Alas, the initial hole the Buckeyes dug for themselves was too deep, and they could not get out, losing to Quinnipiac, 4-3.

Osiecki, frustrated with the first period, did not lose sight of the bigger picture as the Buckeyes season mark leveled at 1-1.

"The first period was difficult. That's a lot of minutes to have to kill with a young team. Until you watch you don't know which ones were smart plays and which ones were not. But you want the guys to be aggressive....We never had an opportunity (with penalties). How do you get in the flow of the game? The second and third periods were good responses. It easily could have gone 7-0. The response was outstanding for us." 

In other hockey news, Ohio State's Sean Duddy, a senior co-captain, was named one of 20 candidates for the Lowe's Senior CLASS award. The award celebrates notable achievement and excellence in the areas of community, character, classroom and competition. 

Soccer splits two - again

Once again, the Ohio State men's soccer team has excelled in being up-and-down. For the fourth straight week, the Buckeyes played two matches, and for the fourth straight week, they found themselves ending the seven day period with one win and one loss. This previous week began with a 1-0 home victory against Bowling Green, and ended with a 3-2 home loss to the Northwestern Wildcats in Big Ten conference play.

Hegngi now has eight goals 

Freshman Brady Wahl scored his first goal of the season in overtime, three minutes into the extra session, and Matt Lampson recorded his second blank slate of the season shutting out the Falcons. 

Sunday's game against the Wildcats would not be as polite to the Buckeyes. Northwestern jumped out to a 1-0 start on Chris Ritter's goal in the 35th minute, and would stretch the lead to what seemed to be an insurmountable 3-0 edge in the 57th minute. The Buckeyes turned once more to junior Chris Hegngi, and the Big Ten's leading goal scorer did not disappoint, notching two goals in an eight minute span, getting Ohio State to within a goal, but the energy ran out for the Buckeyes on the way to their first B1G loss.

According to coach John Bluem, the final on the scoreboard didn't necessarily reflect the way the game was played.

"We elected during the last 25 minutes of the game to play all the guys that haven't had a chance to play," John Bluem, Ohio State head coach, said after the game. "They're hungry to play and were aggressive. I suspected at that point in time Northwestern was relaxing a little bit. It was nice to score a couple of goals and to get something out of the last 25 minutes."

The Buckeyes will travel to Valparaiso this upcoming Saturday before returning home for more conference play, as Penn State makes their way to Columbus on October 23rd.

Here's an excellent article about Ohio State's Paige Maxwell from "Our Game Magazine". 

That will wrap up an abridged version of "Around The Oval" for this week.  I am going to try and focus a bit more on one or two sports a week so as to not get too "cluttered" in the column. Thanks for reading Buckeye fans.