Contrary to an article I wrote earlier this week, the Bobcats strong play did garner some awards for the team.

Coach Neil Macmillan came away as the Mid-American Conference Coach of the Year for leading his girls to both a MAC regular season and tournament title.  After losing a great senior class last season, Macmillan’s Bobcats were predicted to finish third in the MAC this season. The Portsmouth, England native instead led the team to their third MAC championship in four years.  In his five years, Macmillan is 60-46 as the Bobcats coach.

Freshman Angrea Biegalski took home MAC Freshman of the Year honors with her play as Ohio’s starting center midfielder this season. Biegalski has started every game but one for the Bobcats, and was a key component in to Ohio’s defense. The Collegeville, PA. native routinely guards other team’s top offensive player, and her and the rest of the defense only gave up .97 goals per game in MAC play, which is top in the conference.

Rachel Miller of Kent State was MAC Player of the Year with her 10 goals and 14 assists. She was a big part of the Kent State attack this season.

The Bobcats had two players on the All-MAC First Team. Seniors and former high school teammates Katelyn Shelley and Marcy Dull made the team.

Following that, four Ohio players were named to the second team. Biegalski, Nina Bruno, Courtney Seiders, and Katherine Ballard were the players selected.

The Bobcats come into the weekend 8-8 overall and 6-2 in MAC play.  The weekend slate of games provides a great opportunity for Ohio to secure a first-round bye in the MAC tournament, which begins next Thursday.  The game with Miami especially provides incentive, since the two teams are tied at the moment in the MAC standings.  

Saturday, October 31st vs. Ball State: The Cardinals come into the game lagging, but coach Neil Macmillan said the team is always highly motivated to take on the Bobcats at Pruitt Field.  The team is 4-11 and 2-6 in the MAC.  Keep an eye out for Ball State’s Devanny Kuhn, who comes into the game with 5 goals and 13 points overall for the season.  Ohio handled Ball State early in the conference schedule 3-1.  With Ohio playing great lately and having the advantage of playing at home, the Bobcats should be able to dominate.  I predict a score of about 4-1 in favor of Ohio.

Sunday, November 1st vs. Miami:  This is definitely the bigger game for the Bobcats this weekend.  The two teams are currently tied with 6-2 conference records.  Expect Miami to come into the game highly motivated.  The RedHawks take on Kent State on Saturday, and no matter the result of that game, Miami will have extra motivation against Ohio.  If Miami beats Kent State, they’ll have a chance at the MAC regular season title against Ohio (as will the Bobcats if they beat Ball State).  If the Redhawks lose to the Golden Flashes, the matchup could be a battle for the first-round bye in the tournament.  However, this all hinges on the fact that Ohio has to beat Ball State on Saturday, which they are expected to do.

The last matchup was a 1-0 win by Ohio, but the game could have gone either way.  The RedHawks will also be looking to avenge that loss when they come to Athens.  They are led by Mary Dull, who has 11 goals and 25 points for the RedHawks.  They also have two good goaltenders in Abby Huck and Kelsey Dean. 

With all this said, I think the Bobcats should pull out a win in a hotly contested match-up. In my opinion, Ohio will pull this one out 2-1, with a possibility of overtime.

Since the weekend provides a huge amount of factors with the conference title and tournament seeding, the Bobcats should come out pumped up for both their matchups.  If everything goes their way, they could come out as the MAC regular season championships.  The worst case scenario would be for Ohio to fall to #3 in the MAC, forcing them to play an extra game in the tournament.  This happened to Ohio last year, and the team seemed to run out of gas in the title game against Kent State, where they lost 1-0.  

All in all, I think the Bobcats will come out of the weekend as the #2 team in the MAC and will obtain that first round bye.

This week I challenge campus editor Wes Lowery. In the drab tradition of straight news reporting we’ll dispense with clever quips for each game and just give you the score and winner.

Kent State at Ohio
Lowery – Ohio, 27 – 17
Ragazzo – Ohio, 24 – 13

Central Michigan at Bowling Green
Lowery – Central Michigan, 24-10
Ragazzo – Central Michigan, 45 – 28

Northern Illinois at Miami (OH)
Lowery – Northern Illinois, 21 -3
Ragazzo – Northern Illinois, 24 – 7

Ball State at Eastern Michigan
Lowery – Ball State, 17 – 14
Ragazzo – Eastern Michigan, 21 – 17

Buffalo at Western Michigan
Lowery – Western Michigan, 24 – 14
Ragazzo – Western Michigan, 21 – 13

Akron at Syracuse
Lowery – Syracuse, 35 – 28
Ragazzo – Syracuse, 24 – 21

Temple at Toledo
Lowery – Temple, 21 – 17
Ragazzo – Temple, 28 – 16

The man who helped initially introduce dolphins into the entertainment industry is fighting to take it all back in The Cove, a documentary that exposes dolphin cruelty in all forms. Directed by National Geographic photographer Louis Psihoyos, The Cove is a heartbreaking expose concerning the mass killing of dolphins in the small fishing village of Taiji, Japan.

The film centers around Ric O‘Barry, who was the dolphin trainer for the 1960s TV show Flipper before he became an animal cruelty activist. O’Barry was inspired to rescue dolphins from captivity when one of the show’s dolphins jumped out of its tank, into his arms and died. Because a dolphin must be consciously aware of every breath it takes, as O’Barry says in the film, the dolphin’s leap convinced him she committed suicide, unable to cope with the environmental stress of her captivity.

Thirty-five years later, O’Barry is still working against the industry that he believes is exploiting and abusing dolphins all over the world — an industry that he feels deeply guilty about starting in the first place.

As it turns out, dolphins captured and bought for live shows or “swim-with-a-dolphin” tutorials at places such as Sea World are the fortunate ones. The rest, who are not deemed fit or beautiful enough to perform, are left to be slaughtered by the thousands overseas. In Taiji, more than 23,000 are killed annually.

In his film, O’Barry assembles a team with the intent of finally getting the slaughter of dolphins in Taiji on tape. Filming documentaries in the heist technique has come into vogue after the success of last year‘s Man on Wire, but it isn’t a stylistic or copycat choice that obliges Psihoyos to shoot the film as a mystery/thriller. Filming a piece of the Japanese coastline may seem like a simple task, but the secret cove where the killings take place is not open to the public, especially westerners, and is heavily guarded by the entire town, according to The Cove.

The Ocean’s Eleven-style operation the team employs to plan and execute its goals — a project complete with rocks hidden in cameras and getaway cars — seems almost a bit ridiculous, at least until O‘Barry points out in the film that activists have been killed for trying the same technique in the past. The extent that the townspeople and fishermen go to in order to protect their dirty secret is remarkable.
The footage captured when O’Barry and company finally do succeed in getting footage of the forbidden cove makes for one of the most powerful experience an audience member will encounter at a cinema in 2009.

The Cove, like all good documentaries, succeeds because it works on several different levels. Not only do viewers see O’Barry’s mission, but Psihoyos also exposes a wide-scale cover-up by all levels of the Japanese government while not losing focus on O‘Barry.

It’s hard to pretend that The Cove is an objective work. In fact, it is unashamedly one-sided. Psihoyos makes no attempt to explain the other viewpoint in the film; in context, it’s hard to see how he could. And in an age when Michael Moore’s spin-doctoring, self-interested docu-dramas are hailed by many as exceptional pieces of investigative journalism, The Cove is a truly refreshing analytical documentary that defines the genre and should be appreciated on a wider-scale than it inevitably will be.

It is a unique work in many ways, chiefly in that it succeeds in being preachy without being insufferable (which has been a tough line to tread for many environmental films in the recent past) and is genuinely heartbreaking in a way only documentaries can be. Most importantly, it’s enough to move even the most indifferent of us to action.
4/4 stars

— Cameron Dunbar

Midfielder Katelyn Shelley has been named MAC Offensive Player of the Week after an outstanding weekend.

The senior started out by assisting the only two goals in the Kent State game, a match that Ohio ended up winning 2-1.  

Next, Shelley scored two huge goals in the Missouri State game.  The goals came one minute apart from each other and gave the Bobcats a 4-1 lead, basically sealing the win for the home team.

Shelley had six points overall for the weekend. 

The Ephrata, PA., native has come on strong for the Bobcats after starting the season slow.  She has 15 points in her last nine games, and is the team leader in assists (10) and points (18).  

The senior has been instrumental in the Bobcats’ resurgence.  Ohio was 2-6 on the season, but is 5-1 in their last six games, making them 7-7 and back at .500.