Olympic Recap: Women’s Hockey, Softball, Rifle Teams Have Exceptional Week

Women’s Hockey Win Streak Extends To 13 Games

The Ohio State women’s hockey team tied its winning streak it had at the beginning of the season, beating Minnesota State twice over the weekend for wins 12 and 13 in a row.

The first of the two games on Friday was a 3-0 win for the Buckeyes, the three goals coming from Jenna Buglioni, Jocelyn Amos and Cayla Barnes, each of them in the first period. Raygan Kirk was in net and had 20 saves to get the shutout.

Minnesota State finished the first 20 minutes of Saturday’s game with a 1-0 lead, but the Buckeyes scored three goals in the second period off the sticks of Kiara Zanon, Buglioni and Joy Dunne. They scored three more in the third with Lauren Bernard, Hadley Hartmetz and Stephani Markowski each adding one of their own.

Amanda Thiele was at goalie for most of the game and had 10 saves, giving up one goal in just over 53 minutes of time on the ice. Sophomore Lexington Secreto got seven minutes in net, giving up one goal and getting seven saves for a 6-2 win.

St. Thomas comes to Columbus on Feb. 16 and 17 as the regular season winds down for Ohio State’s last home series of the season.

 Softball Season Starts With Swarm Of Runs

The Buckeyes went to Miami for the Felsberg Invitational to open the 2024 season and it didn’t take long for the bats to get going. They lost game one to Stony Brook 7-5, but followed that up with four straight wins.

They followed the loss with a 6-1 win over Florida International the same day, and picked up two more wins on Feb. 10, shutting out both Southeast Missouri State 13-0 and Stony Brook 9-0. On. Feb. 11 they beat Florida International again by a score of 7-5.

The offensive explosion is reflected in the early-season stats with eight of the nine starters on the team hitting over .300 through five games, six of boasting an average over .400. Catcher Hannah Church leads the team in the small sample with 9 hits in 15 times at the plate (.600), two doubles and a home run.

In the 9-0 win over Stony Brook, Emily Ruck tossed a no-hitter, the third of her career, in six innings and had six strikeouts with three walks. The offense backed her up with 12 hits, most of them coming later in the game, and put up eight runs combined in the fifth and sixth innings. She has a 2.03 ERA and a 0.87 WHIP in three appearances and 10.1 innings pitched so far.

The Buckeyes remain in Florida for The Spring Games, five games between Feb. 16 to 18, starting with Coastal Carolina at noon on Friday.

Rifle Team Wins Beanpot Tournament, Rewrites Range Record Book

The rifle team was in Cambridge, Mass., over the weekend to compete in the annual Beanpot tournament and came back to Columbus as champions of the event with a team score of 4708, an MIT range record, finishing ahead of second place Akron (4700), MIT (4322), Norwich (4304) and Coast Guard (4162).

Derek Keiser scored a range record in smallbore with 588 followed by Viktor Kiss (584), Paige Hollowell (582), Lillian Warren (578) and Dylan Gregory (576) combining for a team score of 2332, another range record.

In air rifle, Kiss also had an individual MIT range record with a score of 597. Keiser scored a 595, followed by Warren with a 593, Hollowell with 591 and Gregory with 588. The 2376 team score was a range record as well. Keisers individual aggregate score of 1183 was another range record.

“It has been fantastic to compete at MIT in Cambridge over the past two seasons and we are looking forward to continuing to have the opportunity to compete in this match into the future,” head coach Ryan Tanoue said. “The team had a very solid match overall with several career best performances which is great to see as we come down the home stretch of the season.

“I also felt that this match set us up well as we head into the NCAA Qualifier next Saturday and we are as ready as we can be for that challenge and the push to qualify for the NCAA Championships.”