One of the factors in No. 10 Navy’s 8-6 win against No. 15 Ohio State yesterday was the Buckeyes’ inability to protect the ball. Ohio State committed 24 turnovers, and at the forefront of the Midshipmen’s attack was senior defenseman Andy Tormey.

Tormey led Navy with four caused turnovers, and all of those came against Buckeyes senior attackman Joel Dalgarno, an honorable mention All American last season.

Dalgarno recorded a hat trick and an assist, but he did commit five turnovers. Midshipmen coach Richie Meade said the coaches felt that the 6-foot-3, 220-pound Tormey would pose match-up problems for the 5-11, 175-pound Dalgarno.

"We said, ‘Get up on this guy’s left hand and force him underneath.’ I think Andy did that almost all of the time when he was on him," Meade said. "And then I think Andy was very physical with him – which we wanted – without fouling him. So today he played a great game against – from what I was reading – one of the best players in the country. So I thought Andy did a nice job with him. We were prepared to play two guys on Dalgarno, but as the game unfolded, we didn’t really need to do that."

Other notes:

*One note of concern for Navy has been the team’s propensity for surrendering goals with just seconds left in quarters. Ohio State junior attackman Mario Ventiquattro scored his first goal yesterday with three seconds left in the second quarter and his second tally with one second left in the third period. VMI junior attackman Jacob Weimer scored a goal with 39 seconds left in the second quarter of last Saturday’s 13-5 loss to the Midshipmen.

"That’s just mental focus," Navy senior goalie Matt Coughlin said. "That’s something we need to work on. We just can’t assume that with three seconds on the clock, the quarter’s over. Every second counts. That’s something we’ve got to work on. That’s kind of a weakness right now for us."

For his part, Buckeyes coach Nick Myers was pleased with the late scores, but he also pointed out that the Midshipmen scored the first two goals of the third quarter and won the opening face-off of the fourth. "We kept just trying to claw and stay in it," he said. "End of the quarter, going into the fourth quarter at the face-off ‘X,’ I think it ended 50-50, but it seemed like when we needed the big draw, they were coming up with it and answering our momentum."

*Speaking of Coughlin, he appeared shaky in the early stages of yesterday’s game, giving up some low goals that he would have stopped last season prior to aggravating a right hamstring injury that forced him to miss much of the latter half of last year.

But Coughlin also shined, stopping, among others, Ventiquattro and senior attackman Doug Ruhnke on point-blank attempts.

Asked whether he has returned to the form of last season, Coughlin said, "Hard to say. It was a long year last year. A little disappointing for me personally. But I feel like as a team, we had a good year. I try not to think about last year too much and focus on right now."