Around the Oval: Ohio State Men’s Hockey To Face Michigan in Big Ten Tournament, Baseball Wins the Frisco Classic and Women’s Tennis Opens Its Conference Slate With a Win

By Chase Brown on March 6, 2023 at 1:05 pm
Men's Hockey
Ohio State Dept. of Athletics
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Ohio State's Olympic sports continued their success in the first months of 2023 with another week of accomplishments from the school's non-revenue programs.

In this edition of Around the Oval, Eleven Warriors’ one-stop shop for coverage of Ohio State's Olympic sports, we offer rundowns for men's hockey, baseball, women's tennis and men's and women's gymnastics.

Over the weekend, we also covered women's basketball's run at the Big Ten Tournament, women's hockey receiving the No. 1 seed at the NCAA Tournament and Sammy Sasso's Big Ten title at 149 pounds.

Men's Hockey

The No. 3-seeded Ohio State men's hockey team advanced to the Big Ten Tournament semifinals with a 3-1 comeback win over No. 6-seeded Penn State in Game 3 of the conference quarterfinals series on Sunday.

A crowded house at Value City Arena witnessed the Buckeyes' victory against the Nittany Lions, which saw Ohio State trail 1-0 before scoring three unanswered goals from Cole McWard, Scooter Brickey and Tate Singleton to secure the win.

Ohio State will face No. 2-seeded Michigan at 6:30 p.m. in Ann Arbor in the single-elimination semifinals round, with the game set to broadcast on Big Ten Network. The Buckeyes won the season series against the Wolverines, 2-1-1, with an overtime win at home, a regulation win in Cleveland in the "Faceoff on the Lake" matchup and a split series on the road.

Saturday's matchup will be the third Big Ten Tournament battle between the rivals. Ohio State won 3-2 in the semifinals in Columbus in 2018, and Michigan captured a 4-0 victory in the quarterfinals in South Bend, Indiana. The Buckeyes have a 2-4 all-time record in the conference semifinals and have finished no higher than second in the Big Ten Tournament since its inception in 2013-14.

Baseball

Ohio State baseball won the Frisco Classic over the weekend in Frisco, Texas. The team went 2-1 in the round-robin tournament and clinched the title with a 12-9 win over Oklahoma that secured a tiebreaker for the Buckeyes.

Ohio State's victory against Oklahoma capped off a three-day stretch in which the Buckeyes also beat down Mississippi State in an 8-3 win on Friday and suffered a 16-1 beatdown of their own to California on Saturday.

In the matchup with the Sooners, the Buckeyes came back from an early 3-0 deficit with a five-run third inning. Despite multiple threats by Oklahoma to break the game wide open, Ohio State never surrendered its lead and added three runs in the fifth, another three in the seventh and an insurance run in the ninth to capture the 11-9 win.

Ohio State's bats shined in the contest as the Buckeyes had an impressive 16 hits on the day and featured six players with multi-hit performances. Tyler Pettorini had three doubles and two RBIs, Matthew Graveline had three hits and one RBI, Nick Erwin had two hits and three RBIs, Kade Kern had two hits and three RBIs, Mitchell Okuley had two hits and Marcus Ernst had two hits and an RBI.

After the tournament, Ohio State had three players named to the Frisco Classic All-Tournament team: Isaiah Coupet, Kern and Pettorini.

Coupet improved to 3-0 with his stellar performance against the Bulldogs on Friday, throwing five innings of one-hit baseball. He walked six, struck out nine and allowed only one run in the contest. Kern and Pettorini were on fire at the plate for the entire weekend as Kern racked up four hits, three RBIs and three runs across the three games, while Pettorini recorded five hits, five RBIs and two runs.

Women's Tennis

Ohio State women's tennis kicked off Big Ten competition with a 7-0 sweep of Penn State on Saturday at the Ty Tucker Tennis Center.

The No. 3 Buckeyes improved to 8-4 with the dominant win. Ohio State also has its first conference victory, which acts as the initial step toward the program defending its Big Ten regular-season championship from a year ago.

Against Penn State, Ohio State captured the doubles point with wins from Sydni Ratliff and Isabelle Boulais on court two and Danielle Willson and Kollie Allen on court three. In the singles competition, the Buckeyes continued dismantling the Nittany Lions by collecting quick victories from Shelly Bereznyak, Ratliff and Willson to secure the match, 4-0.

At that point, coaches from both teams elected to continue their unfinished matches, which allowed Ohio State to claim three more points with victories from Allen, Lucia Marzal and Irina Cantos Siemers.

Looking ahead, Ohio State will travel to Los Angeles this weekend to face UCLA on Saturday. The team will also stop in Malibu, California, for a battle with Pepperdine on March 14. The Buckeyes' next Big Ten match will be three days after, on March 17, against Wisconsin in Columbus.

Gymnastics

Ohio State's gymnastics teams claimed impressive victories over the weekend. The men's squad defeated Army on Saturday, and the women's squad beat Illinois and Kent State in a tri-meet on Sunday.

Men's Gymnastics

Ohio State men's gymnastics put together its best performance of the season when it beat Army by over 22 points, 409.95-387.60, in West Point, New York, over the weekend. With the win over the No. 11 Black Knights, the No. 7 Buckeyes claimed their second top-25 victory of the year.

Against Army, Ohio State's best performers were Tomohiro Kawada and Kristian Grahovski, with scores of 13.800 on rings and 13.400 on rings, respectively. Cade Spencer also stuck his vault and scored a 14.750 to win the individual event title.

"Today was a pretty solid day for us as a whole," Ohio State head coach Rustam Sharipov said after the meet. "The last two weeks of hard work, I believe, was shown in our performance. We still had some mistakes and came up short on some goals, but overall, I’m pleased and happy."

The team's next match day will be its most difficult meet of the year as Ohio State welcomes No. 1 Oklahoma and No. 4 Penn State into the Covelli Center on Saturday. The Buckeyes will then wrap up their regular season in Lincoln, Nebraska, in a dual with the Cornhuskers.

Women's Gymnastics

Ohio State women's gymnastics also had a fantastic performance in its competition over the weekend as the No. 16 Buckeyes closed out their regular season with their second-best overall score in program history to beat Illinois and Kent State.

Nicole Riccardi and Payton Harris secured event titles on uneven bars, while Lexi Edwards and Syndey Jennings were awarded first place for their individual performances in floor and vault, respectively.

After the event, the program honored Edwards, Alexis Hankins, Ella Hodges, Raina Malas and student assistants Zoe Schweitzer, Sarah Rowland and Mikayla Martin as part of Senior Day festivities for the class of 2023.

Ohio State's next competition will take place on Friday in Berkeley, California, to face the California Golden Bears. The meet will be the final regular season match for the Buckeyes, who will move on to compete at the Big Ten Championships in Iowa City on March 18 before the NCAA Regionals from March 29 to April 1.

Other News and Notes

  • No. 11 Ohio State men's volleyball fell to Charleston on Saturday at the Covelli Center in a nonconference matchup. Samuel Clark led Ohio State with 18 kills, while Jack Stevens (13) and Jacob Pasteur (11) also posted double figures in the category. The Buckeyes are now 11-6 on the year.
  • No. 9 Ohio State men's lacrosse suffered a 16-13 loss to No. 3 Cornell on Saturday at Ohio State Lacrosse Stadium. The Buckeyes performed well in the contest and even outscored the Big Red 10-8 in the second half, but that effort ended up being too little too late for the scarlet and gray. Ohio State is now 3-2 this season.
  • Ohio State women's lacrosse fell to No. 12 James Madison, 16-7, on Saturday in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Like the men's team, the women's squad performed well in flashes, but the Dukes were too much to handle for the entirety of the contest. Ohio State is now 4-3 on the year.

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