Ohio Hockey vs. Youngstown St. Preview

The Ohio University hockey team started the ’09 season strong, with a series sweep over Mercyhurst last weekend.

This weekend, the Bobcats are set to faceoff against the Youngstown State Penguins. The upcoming series is the first of the year for Youngstown State, after a strong campaign a year ago in which they upended nationally ranked programs including Pitt and West Virginia.

During the 2008-2009 season, the Penguins found themselves nationally ranked for the first time in the programs short three-year history. OU players said although they don’t know a lot about Youngstown State as a team, they will not look past them.

“A lot of the younger guys don’t know a whole lot about them,” admitted forward Tyler Pilmore. “But we won’t overlook them, we’re focused on them this weekend,” he continued.

The Bobcats began the season with a 3-1 victory last Friday night, followed by a 5-0 blowout win over the Lakers Saturday night, in a game where an all out brawl erupted between the two teams after what appeared to be a premeditated fight drawn up by the Mercyhurst coaching staff.

When asked what the team needed to improve on from last week to this week, Bobcats Head Coach Dan Morris said they need to focus on doing a better job scoring goals when they have the opportunity.

“I would like to see us finish when we have our chances,” Morris said. “But it’s early.”

This weekend’s matchup also presents a difficult task in replacing five injured guys. Morris said he has been switching up the lines all week in order to compensate.

The team will also focus on gelling as a unit and becoming more comfortable with the system. “We struggled with our chemistry a bit last week,” said Pilmore.

Teammate Justin Farmer agreed, “We need to play together,” he said. “We don’t know much about them, but we go into the weekend the same as every week, as long as we play our game, it doesn’t matter who we play.”