Denver held on to beat Ohio State 15-13 after Ohio initially pulled ahead 7-1 in Saturday’s matchup. It seems despite a loss for the Buckeyes, they are indeed for real and have the necessities to go all the way in the near future. Despite a win for DU, they played one of their more sloppy games this past weekend and will most assuredly need to regroup before this upcoming Championship Weekend.
Ohio State proved they knew what they were doing. To start the early scoring drives, the Buckeyes found the Pioneers’ weak spot on defense and repeatedly attacked it and rotated players to stay efficient. In particular, Buckeyes #6 Trevor Hodgins would take the ball low right (defensive view) and attack the backside. Ohio found a lot of success by attacking down low.
Secondly, Ohio’s rides against DU’s defensive clears were perfection. For the first half or so of the game, Denver couldn’t successfully clear the ball. Some could blame it on lack of movement from the Pioneers, but it was really Ohio’s effectiveness.
Thirdly, Ohio’s defense was out to kill. The bottom backs of the Buckeyes’ shooter shirts say GRIND, and they mean it. The checks heard throughout the stadium were some of the loudest in recent memory. They played tough, pressured defense against the Pio’s and didn’t give DU a chance to even set up an offense.
Finally, Ohio’s Christopher May was a superstar at the face off X and dominated Denver’s Trevor Baptiste for the majority of the game. Whereas DU is used to getting quick fast breaks and face off wins, it was in Ohio’s favor.
Denver pulled together some magic themselves. It’s reported that during the post-game press conference, Head Coach Bill Tierney was teary eyed with emotion. He admitted that when he had no answers or when the players were completely unorganized, they still found a way to come together and refuse to lose.
Offensive machines like Connor Cannizzaro, Wes Berg, Erik Adamson and Zach Miller got physical and fired the pressure right back at Ohio proving that one on ones can be effective, and also that DU has the individual talents to go the length.
The Denver defense played tough, and even stayed pretty organized. From a sideline perspective, it was the one on one’s from Ohio that tripped up DU as well as top side cuts. By staying wide-spread and cutting with the ball low behind the goal, they found a lot of openings that either caught the Pio’s off guard or in the middle of a slide.
Ryan LaPlante was having a frustrating day protecting the cage. Numerous times he felt referees missed calls of crease violations or that his defenders let the shot happen. He was critically hard on himself, but in the end his offense saved him.
Denver won the game, proving to be the better, more experienced team. However, if they plan to take Notre Dame on Saturday in Philadelphia they’ll need to really regroup and refocus to play their top tier game.
