Upset and angry after losing in straight sets to North Carolina Friday, the Bobcats woke up.
Ohio U. lost its second consecutive match with the opening loss of the JQH Invitational in Springfield, Mo. and was searching for answers.
“You don’t want losing to become a streak obviously,” said outside hitter Sue Jacobi. “After we lost that (North Carolina) match, it was a wake up call for us. It was a really good learning experience for us.
“We knew that after that, we really had to come back from that, play our best and win our next three matches.”
The team responded to the defeat. Ohio (5-2) won its final three games in two days en route to the tournament championship.
After defeating Southeastern Missouri State 3-0 (25-15, 25-22, 25-20), Ohio faced two teams that received American Volleyball Coaches Association Top-25 votes in Texas A&M and host Missouri State, but dispatched both squads in four sets.
The match against the Aggies showed the change in mentality the Bobcats had for the rest of the tournament, junior Katie Post said.
“The Texas A&M game, that’s when we showed that we were the better team overall on the weekend,” said Post, who won tournament MVP award with 46 kills and a .417 hitting percentage. “It was a very emotional match for all of us, and after we won, we felt very good about ourselves and wanted to keep going.”
This JQH Invitational wasn’t the first time this season Ohio faced adversity in a match.
During a 3-2 win over North Dakota State U. Aug. 28, the Bobcats trailed two sets to one before coming back to win.
“As a team, we’ve learned that despite if we’ve lost a match or if we’ve lost a set, we have definitely proved that we can come back from that and learn from that as a team,” Post said.
Following the North Carolina loss, coach Ryan Theis said the team couldn’t complete the little things and that the team was inexperienced. By the end of the weekend, he saw an improvement.
“(The loss) made us realize how important little things were when last ball fell and we had lost,” Theis said. “We put a lot of pressure on ourselves to do it from that point on, and we did. That’s the greatest part about the weekend. After that match, any opportunity we got we took advantage of it and we won the points.
“I think we matured a little bit this weekend.”
The Bobcats started the season Aug. 27, winning at home to Virginia Commonwealth before going 1-1 in the Sheraton Riverside Cardinal Classic in Louisville, Ky, where Jacobi and senior setter Michelle Jantsch were named to the All-Tournament team.
Jantsch also earned All-Tournament honors at the JHQ Invitational.