It was an interesting week for the landscape for college athletics. The news of Northwestern football players winning their initial case with the NLRB to be considered employees raises some red flags for the future of the non-revenue sports. However, major college athletics reformation likely won't happen for quite some time, and the non-revenue teams at Ohio State had a pretty strong week.
The top-ranked rowing team got off to a strong start against rival Michigan, going 3-0 against the Wolverines to extend their winning streak to 18 games. Speaking of winning streaks, the men's tennis team has a few pretty long ones, which they extended this week. Meanwhile, the swimming team competed in the NCAA championships and brought home some serious hardware, while the baseball team had a busy week as well.
Swimming and Diving
The men's swim team wrapped up their season this past weekend with an 18th place finish at the NCAA Championships in Austin, Texas. In addition, eight Buckeyes took home All-American honors.
Senior Tim Phillips finished third in the 100 Butterfly, en route to being named a first-team All-American. He also finished 11th in the 200 Freestyle Relay, 19th in the 200 Medley Relay and ninth in the 400 Freestyle relay to capture honorable mention All-American honors in these events.
Seven other Buckeyes took home honorable mention All-American awards - Josh Fleagle, Michael DiSalle, Matt McHugh, Garrett Trebilcock, DJ MacDonald, Steffen Hillmer and Rowan Williams.
California won the team competition, with Michigan (4), Indiana (10), Penn State (17) and Minnesota (22) all representing the Big Ten with Top-25 finishes.
Tennis
Last Friday, the Buckeye tennis team made history by winning their 185th-consecutive home match. On Sunday afternoon, Ohio State added to the streak by dominating No. 10 Illinois (5-2) at home.
Despite top player Peter Kobelt losing his match, Ohio State won in impressive fashion behind Herrko Pollanen's upset of No. 9 Jared Hitzik of Illinois (4-6, 6-0, 6-3). Kevin Metka, Hunter Callahan and Ralph Steinbach all won their individual matches as well, and Ohio State swept doubles.
With the win Ohio State claimed sole possession of first place in the Big Ten, and extended their Big Ten winning streak to 88 straight wins – dating back to 2005.
Up next for Ty Tucker's squad is a three match road trip to No. 50 Minnesota (Friday), No. 62 Wisconsin (Sunday) and No. 13 Kentucky next Wednesday.
Baseball
It was a busy week for the baseball team, playing five games in the past week. Ohio State beat Marshall, got swept by Indiana, then knocked off Ohio.
Starting pitcher Zach Farmer led the way to a 4-0 win over Marshall, tossing five scoreless innings and striking out a career-high six. Offensively, Troy Kuhn had a pair of hits and Jacob Bosiokovic knocked in two of the four Buckeye runs.
Against Indiana, the story was a lack of offense. The Buckeyes scored four, two and one runs in the three game series, and the pitchers couldn't keep Indiana off the scoreboard - allowing six, eight and seven runs.
Ohio State bounced back last night against Ohio, tallying 19 hits against the Bobcats on the way to an 11-6 win.
"We had a tough weekend and it was good to get back in the saddle and play Ohio State baseball," said head coach Greg Beals. The Buckeyes came out swinging right away, scoring five runs in the opening inning. By the end of the sixth inning, the lead was stretched to 10-2. Ohio scored four runs in the final two innings, but still came up short.
Zach Ratcliff exploded with three hits and five RBI's, including a home run. Troy Kuhn, Pat Porter, Ronnie Dawson and Ryan Leffel all had three hits as well.
Ohio State will hope to build on their offensive momentum tonight, when they host Toledo at 6:35.
