Football
Otterbein football was picked to finish fourth in the Ohio Athletic Conference preseason polls behind Mount Union, Heidelberg and Baldwin Wallace, respectively. But that doesn’t mean much to head coach Tim Doup.
“I tell our guys this all the time: we don’t care about polls, we don’t worry about rankings, we don’t talk about it,” Doup said. “I’ve never let them talk about it. You gotta play the game.”
The team finished 8-2 last season, Doup’s first season at the helm. Under Doup, the Cardinals averaged 23.8 points per game and gave up only 16.1 — that’s down 13.8 points from the 2011 campaign. And with some of the 2012 defensive cast returning, look for that number to drop even further.
Defensive ends Pat Seesholtz, a preseason All-American, and Zack Grieves, the team’s top tackler, return as seniors to anchor Doup’s aggressive 3-4 defense. A young offensive line digs in on the other side of the ball in front of returning quarterbacks Ben Sizemore, a senior, and Brick Davis, a junior.
But what Doup really wants to see is how his team will respond to adversity, remembering going down 13-0 to Marietta in the first four minutes. “I think that no matter what happens, they’re going to stay poised and calm and say ‘Hey, we’re OK here.’ When they get punched, are they going to get up and punch back?”
Women’s Soccer
When Brandon Koons started as the women’s head coach in 1999, he set small goals that he knew his team would achieve.
“If we lost 3-1 to a team who beat us 8-0 (the year before), we achieved our goal for the day,” Koons said. “And the next year we wanted to have a winning record. And the next year we wanted to get in the top four.”
After graduating 2010’s 20-win Final Four team, Koons set more small goals for his team. In 2011, the Cardinals missed the postseason, finishing 10-6-2. In 2012, they missed the postseason again, but won three more games, finishing 13-6.
This season, the team is returning 15 players, including seniors Amanda Case, Morgan Hendrickson and Jill Knox, and the team’s leading scorer, sophomore Megan McCabe
Last season, the Cards scored 2.16 goals per game and gave up a staunch .74. The Cardinals open the season with four road games before coming home to take on Denison University on Sept. 11 at 5 p.m.
Men’s Soccer
The men’s soccer team finished their 2012 campaign 6-8-3 — one win better than their 5-10-2 record in 2011.
Otterbein graduated their top two scorers from last year — Dusty Kiaski and Aaric Milligan — but is returning the third and fourth finishing scorers, junior Jared Pulliam and sophomore Luis Rivas; the duo combined for 11 of Otterbein’s 54 points last season.
Kyle Ripma will be back for his senior year in goal. He started all 17 games for the Cards last season, allowing 1.46 goals per game and making 98 saves for a .790 save percentage. Seniors Jake Keller and Justin Cox will return for their final season on the team’s defense — like Ripma, both started all 17 games on the back line.
In his 25th season as head coach, Gerry D’Arcy brought in 10 freshmen to help round out the Cardinal’s roster. The team has missed out on the playoffs each of the last five seasons, finishing 2-4-3 in conference play last year.
Men’s and Women’s Cross Country
Head coach Scott Alpeter now leads both men’s and women’s cross country teams this season and is looking for his runners to make a strong push towards the OAC Championships and eventually nationals.
“The melding of the two teams has gone remarkably well,” Alpeter said. “We meet together, do the same workouts together, and encourage one another along the way.”
On the men’s side the top returners include Andrew Mantell, Joey Montoya and Phillip Cochran.
“Those three guys are really training very well together,” Alpeter said. “Mantell has really stepped up his game, Montoya is a very driven young man who wants to be as good as he can be and Cochran loves to run, period.”
Last season Mantell and Montoya both led the distance medley relay team to an OAC title while Mantell won the 1,000 meters and placed second in the mile at the OAC indoor meet.
Outdoors, Mantell won the OAC title in the 800 and recorded the second fastest time in school history with a time of 1:53.05.
In addition to leading the distance relay team to an OAC title, Montoya would also receive All-OAC honors for both the OAC indoor and outdoor championships in the 5,000-meter. Cochran comes into the season ranked eighth in the OAC at 5,000- and 10,000-meter distances.
On the women’s side, Alpeter said he is seeing a lot of good things from the freshman class as well as the returners including Allie Thomas, Victoria Konkle and Kaila Cramer.
“We have just a bevy of top freshman who came in this year,” Alpeter said. “There is probably about six or seven freshmen that came in that are good (and) make us about 10 deep on the women’s side.”
Cramer returns after placing fourth in the mile run and eighth in the 800-meter run at the OAC indoor championships last season while Konkle finished 13th in 5,000 meters at the conference outdoor meet.
“They are working together well as a pack of 10 so we have a lot of depth on the women’s side that we didn’t have last year,” Alpeter said. “Things are headed in the right direction in regard to that as well.”
This season both the men’s and women’s cross country teams will compete at the same invitationals throughout the fall with their first race starting Saturday, September 7, at the Hanover College Invitational in Hanover, Ind.
The Cardinals will host the Otterbein Invitational on September 21 and the OAC Championships scheduled on November 2.
Men’s and Women’s Golf
Another OAC title and NCAA championship appearance is on the list this fall for the men’s and women’s golf teams who begin their seasons on september 7.
Last season, Christine Foppe, Alexandra Pulos, Marie McGinnis, Kathryn Rogers aided in leading the team to an NCAA Championship appearance in May. However, they would fall short placing 16th out of 21 teams.
Their first invitational hosted by Denison University will take place in Granville, Ohio on September 7-8. Time is yet to be determined.
The men’s team will be led by five seniors this year including seniors Matt Mosca and Nicholas Rhodes who helped lead the team to an NCAA Championship appearance last season.
Other big returners include sophomores David Monaco and Luke Kindelin.
Kindelin is currently coming off an impressive freshman season in which he was selected to both the All-Region and All-Freshman team.
The group of four also competed in the NCAA Championships but ended up missing the final round cut by eight strokes.
The team’s season starts in Lexington, Kentucky at the Transylvania Fall Invitational on September 7-8. Time is yet to be determined.
Women’s Tennis
Pat Anderson begins her 17th season as head coach for women’s tennis after receiving her third OAC Coach of the Year for the 2012-2013 season.
As for this year, Anderson has high expectations of winning the conference after falling short by coming in second last year. The women have had no breaks during the offseason to prepare for winning the conference.
“They had a very extensive workout last year and that’s why they were as successful as they were,” Anderson said. “Most all of them work very hard throughout the year and summer to get where they are now.”
After a successful junior year working her way to a perfect 22-0 overall record, Julie Stroyne, a senior nursing major, returns to tennis after adding to her collection of three OAC Player of the Year awards.
Also returning, Sammi Kruger, a sophomore early childhood education major, who followed suit with teammate Stroyne by earning First Team All-OAC.
As well as being powerhouses on their own, the pair Stroyne and Kruger became an unstoppable duo when paired for doubles. Stroyne and Kruger went 15-3 overall and 8-2 in the OAC.
Otterbein will open its season Saturday, September 7 against Indiana Institute of Technology.
Men’s Tennis
After placing three members on the All-OAC teams for the 2012-2013 season, the men’s tennis team looks forward to yet another year of victories. With a strong recruiting class, the Otterbein team will be able to fill in some gaps that may have been missing from the year before.
“Their records of success in high school gets me excited for the season,” said head coach Mark Anderson. “I’ve seen a couple of them play and I’m confident that they will bring us a lot of success.”
Returners Ryan Shutt, senior middle childhood education major, and Tyler Gibbons, senior sport management major, will be captains for the 2013-2014 season. Also returning, David Seckel, sophomore sport management major, and Will Wilson, sophomore economics major.
For the team as a whole, I expect to perform very strong,” Anderson said. “I have very high expectations for this year. This is going to be a very solid team.”
The men’s team will join the women’s in Fort Wayne, Ind. to take on Indiana Institute of Technology on September 7.
Volleyball
With their first OAC title in the books, the volleyball team looks to repeat last year’s success.
A 26-8 record left Otterbein a championship team last year under head coach Monica McDonald’s seventh season at Otterbein. With a victorious record, McDonald has coached the volleyball team to a 102-30 record since 2009, as well as three NCAA Tournament appearances.
But after losing two key seniors, Kristen Bennett and Michelle Gernert, this year’s players will need to step up their game. “A big change for us will be that our seniors are gone,” McDonald said.
Maddy Shelley, freshman nursing major, will step in on the left side to take the place of Gernert. “She worked hard in the offseason and coming off an injury, she’s looking healthy,” McDonald said.
Tabatha Piper, junior marketing and public relations major, is just one of many returners who will continue to work for success. Piper struck gold last year being named First Team All-OAC, First Team All-Region and Third Team AVCA All-America and for a second season in a row led the conference in assists.
“They don’t believe they are the best team in the country and until you’re there you still have that drive,” McDonald said. “I think mentally this team is in a very good place.”
The volleyball team opens their season in a seven team tournament with Capital on Friday, August 30 at 5 p.m. in the Rike Center.
