Big Ten competition filled Ohio State’s weekend slate of games

The football program was busy hosting the annual spring game over the weekend, but there were a lot of other Buckeye and Big Ten matchups to pay attention to. It wasn’t all great, with the softball team losing to Northwestern, and the women’s lacrosse team falling to Maryland, but the men’s tennis team now holds the sole No. 1 spot in the Big Ten and the men’s volleyball team advanced to the MIVA Semifinals.

Here’s a recap of some of the Ohio State teams’ weekend competitions.

Softball

Coming off of sweeps of Rutgers and Penn State, the Buckeyes had momentum heading into their Big Ten series against Northwestern over the weekend. The three-game series was supposed to span Friday to Sunday, but rain forced a double header on Sunday, with the second game ultimately getting rained out, anyway. It might have been for the best, seeing that the Buckeyes fell to the Wildcats 10-2 on Friday and 14-6 in their first game on Sunday. Ohio State now sits at 26-10 overall on the season, and 7-6 in Big Ten play.

The Buckeyes will host in-state rival, the Ohio Bobcats, for a double header on Wednesday starting at 5 p.m. ET.

Baseball

With the storms that led schools to cancel spring games throughout the Midwest this weekend, the Ohio State baseball team was forced to turn their three-day series at Penn State into two, with a double header on Saturday to avoid Sunday’s predicted weather. After shutting out the Nittany Lions 1-0 in Friday’s matchup, the Buckeyes went on to sweep the series with two wins on Saturday, 5-1 and a devastating 19-8 blowout to finish the day.

“We won in different ways this weekend, which is great,” head coach Greg Beals said. “We won a one-run game on Friday and we won a game with our bats today in game three. That speaks to our ball club. We are willing to compete for each other and we made sure we took care of business.”

Ohio State is back home this week, for an in-state matchup against Miami (Ohio) on Tuesday, April 17 at 6:35 p.m. ET. This will be the first of an eight-game stretch of games played at Nick Swisher Field at Bill Davis Stadium, in Columbus.

Women’s Lacrosse

It was a wet Sunday for the Buckeyes, who had few answers for a shot-happy Maryland team, who bested Ohio State — on their home turf — 20-5 in the matchup. After the Terps took a quick 3-0 lead out of the gate, the Buckeyes spent the afternoon trying to play catch-up, and couldn’t quite get there. The Ohio State team will hit the road later this week for their regular-season finale, Friday at 5 p.m. ET against Johns Hopkins.

Men’s Lacrosse

It was pretty perfect that the Buckeyes would snap their five-game losing streak with a home win against rival Michigan. Ohio State didn’t trail at any time in during the contest, and came away with the 8-5 victory — continuing their 7-0 all-time series sweep over TTUN.

Women’s Tennis

The women’s tennis team snagged a 5-2 win on the road over the weekend at Purdue, picking up four singles wins and the doubles point for the Big Ten conference victory. Now ranked No. 35, Ohio State sits at 12-6 on the season, and 6-3 in conference play.

“That was a really gritty performance today. We have had some tough 4-3 matches this year that didn’t go our way. Today we fought hard and for Olivia and Shiori to win basically simultaneously at the end was really good to see.” — Coach Schaub

The Buckeyes will now turn their attention to the regular season finale this upcoming weekend, with Senior Day scheduled for Sunday’s matchup against No. 12 Northwestern.

Men’s Tennis

It wasn’t that surprising — although, always nice to be right — when the Buckeyes bested the Wildcats in Sunday’s Senior Day matchup. It was Saturday’s contest against then-No. 6 Illinois that was cause for concern. Heading into the weekend’s competition, Ohio State and Illinois were tied at the top of the Big Ten rankings, with both teams holding undefeated records thus far in conference play.

The Buckeyes seemingly had little to be worried about as they swept the Fighting Illini on their way to holding the sole No. 1 spot among the Big Ten. With their two wins over the weekend, Ohio State moves to 24-2 on the season, and a very nice 9-0 in Big Ten play.

Men’s Volleyball

Ohio State entered the Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association (MIVA) Tournament as the No. 1-seed (21-5), and set a quick pace with a three-set sweep (25-22, 25-18, 25-12) over Quincy in their first series. Buckeye senior — and all-time program leader in career aces (226) and points (1,934) — Nicolas Szerszen is now just four terminations shy of setting Ohio State’s all-time record in kills too (Steve Potter 1,602 kills; 1992-95).

The Buckeyes will compete in the MIVA Semifinal on Wednesday (April 18) — at St. John Arena in Columbus — versus Lewis.