.png&type=webp)
Bowling Green State University Athletics
Falcons Host Niagara Sunday
January 04, 2000 | Women's Soccer
Sept. 6, 1999
TOP STORIES:
* - BGSU head coach Tom Piccirillo needs just one more win to reach the 100-victory mark for his career ... Piccirillo, in his third year with the Falcons, is 99-84-9 overall in his 11th year as a collegiate head coach.
* - The Falcons suffered a 1-0 defeat to arguably the strongest team BG has ever faced ... BGSU fell to Georgia, a team that advanced to the NCAA Tournament's round of 16 last year.
* - BG's win over Michigan State in the season opener marked the first win over a Big Ten Conference opponent in school history.
THIS WEEK: The Bowling Green State University women's soccer team has just one match on tap this week, a Sunday (Sept. 12) afternoon tilt vs. Niagara University. The Falcons (2-2-0) and the Purple Eagles will meet at BGSU's Cochrane Field, with kickoff scheduled for 1:00 p.m.
The Niagara match is the final non-league contest before BG embarks upon the Mid-American Conference schedule. Following Sunday's contest, the Falcons' next 10 matches will be played against MAC foes, beginning with a Sept. 15 home match vs. Kent.
TOM PICCIRILLO: BGSU head coach Tom Piccirillo is in his third season at the helm of the Falcons, and has a 16-25-1 record. His overall record, which includes five years at Tiffin and three seasons at Keuka (N.Y.), is 99-84-9.
Julie Reule is in her third season as Piccirillo's assistant.
ABOUT THE FALCONS: Bowling Green is 2-2-0 on the season. After opening the season with a pair of home wins, the Brown and Orange dropped two matches in Athens, Ga., last weekend. BG defeated Michigan State, 3-2 in overtime, to open the season (Aug. 27). Two days later, the host Falcons downed Valparaiso by a 5-1 score.
Last weekend, the Brown and Orange fell to Georgia, 1-0, Friday (Sept. 3) before losing a 4-2 contest to East Carolina Sunday (Sept. 5).
Through four matches, freshman Jill Conover paces the Falcons with nine points, followed by sophomore Desiree Erb, with six. Junior Michelle Lisy and freshman Susan Wallace have five points apiece on the season.
BGSU finished the 1998 season with an overall record of 8-11-1. The Falcons went 4-5-1 in MAC play to finish sixth. In the MAC Tournament, BG posted a 1-0 win at third-seeded Eastern Michigan in the quarterfinals before losing to the number-two seed and eventual tourney champ, Northern Illinois, in the semifinals by a 2-1 count.
ABOUT THE OPPONENT: Niagara is 0-3 on the year. The Purple Eagles lost the season opener to Buffalo, 3-0 (Sept. 1), before falling to Lehigh by a 1-0 count Saturday (Sept. 4). The next day (Sept. 5), NU fell at Drexel. 3-0. A year ago, Niagara went 2-12-1 overall and 2-7-0 in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. Peter Vetri, 12-22-4 in his third year as a head coach, is in his first year at the helm of the Purple Eagles. Niagara plays a Friday (Sept. 10) match at Toledo before heading to BG.
THE SERIES: The Falcons have never faced Niagara in women's soccer.
RECAPPING THE MATCHES:
FALCON NOTES: After just one weekend of action, sophomore Desiree Erb had topped her scoring total for all of last season ... Erb, who had five points in 1998, had six points in the first two matches ... freshman Jill Conover has exploded for nine points in the first two weekends ... Conover had two assists against both Michigan State and Valparaiso ... she added a goal vs. Valpo, then had a goal and an assist against East Carolina ... BGSU's win over MSU was the team's first over a Big Ten school in five tries ... additionally, the third-year Falcons won the season opener for the third consecutive year ... the match marked BGSU's first overtime victory since the first match in program history (Aug. 29, 1997, at Kent) ... for the second time in three years, BGSU is believed to have scored the first "Golden Goal" (OT match-ending goal) of the season ... two years ago, Kerry McKee scored the NCAA's first-ever "Golden Goal" in that Kent contest ... BGSU's starting lineup for the first three matches consisted of five juniors, three sophomores and three freshmen.
FALCON QUICK FACTS
THIS WEEK
LAST WEEK
East Carolina 4, BGSU 2
1999 RECORDS
HEAD COACH - Tom Piccirillo (third year)
ASSISTANT COACH - Julie Reule (third year)
BOWLING GREEN RECORDS
1999 MAC STANDINGS
The Falcons opened the season with a 3-2 overtime win over visiting Michigan State (Aug. 27) ... junior Michelle Lisy's goal at the 99:46 mark lifted BG to the victory ... sophomore Desiree Erb had a pair of goals in the match ... the win was the Falcons' first ever over a Big Ten Conference opponent ... sophomore Beth Wechsler and freshman Jill Conover had two assists apiece ... another freshman, goalkeeper Erika Flanders, played the entire match to earn her first collegiate win ... Flanders, who made six saves, was not forced to make a save in the overtime ... still another freshman, Susan Wallace, had the first two goals of her career in a 5-1 win over Valparaiso two days later (Aug. 29) ... Wallace also had an assist vs. the Crusaders, as BG frosh combined for three goals and four assists ... BGSU broke on top nearly 15 minutes in, with goals from junior Autumn Harris and Conover just 39 seconds apart ... Lisy also had a goal, while Conover and Erb had two assists each ... Flanders made three saves in nearly 75 minutes ... BG's 20-11 advantage in shots included a 13-4 edge in shots on goal ... the Falcons dropped a 1-0 contest at Georgia Friday night (Sept. 3) ... a goal by Beth Culver in the second minute of the contest proved to be all the scoring the Bulldogs would need ... BGSU held tough against a team which advanced to the "Sweet 16" of last year's NCAA Tournament ... BG was outshot, 19-5, and UGA held a 6-2 edge in the shots-on-goal department ... Flanders made five saves in net ... on Sunday (Sept. 5), the Falcons erased one deficit, but found the second deficit too much to overcome ... the result was a 4-2 loss to East Carolina in a neutral-site match ... ECU got on the board in the 33rd minute, but sophomore Mandy Smith scored her first collegiate goal with just 19 seconds remaining in the first half ... Conover and Wechsler assisted on the play ... in the second half, however, the Pirates built a three-goal lead, and Conover's unnassisted goal with just over two minutes left was not enough ... Flanders made seven saves for the Brown and Orange.
Niagara at BGSU
Sunday, September 12 - 1:00 p.m.
Cochrane Field - Bowling Green
Georgia 1, BGSU 0
Friday, September 3 - Athens, Ga.
Sunday, September 5 - Athens, Ga.
Overall: 2-2-0 (.500)
Mid-American Conference: 0-0-0
Alma Mater: Upsala, 1986
Record at BGSU: 16-25-1
Career Record: 99-84-9 (11th yr.)
Alma Mater: James Madison, 1995
All-Time: 16-25-1 (.393) (1997-present / third year)
MAC: 5-11-1 (.324) (1997-present / third year)
Team (Overall)____________MAC__Pts. Ball State (1-2-0)______0-0-0__0 Bowling Green (2-2-0)___0-0-0__0 Buffalo (2-0-0)_________0-0-0__0 Central Mich. (2-1-1)___0-0-0__0 Eastern Mich. (3-0-0)___0-0-0__0 Kent (1-0-0)____________0-0-0__0 Marshall (2-0-0)________0-0-0__0 Miami (2-0-0)___________0-0-0__0 Northern Ill. (0-4-0)___0-0-0__0 Ohio (1-1-0)____________0-0-0__0 Toledo (1-2-0)__________0-0-0__0 Western Mich. (1-1-0)___0-0-0__0 (three points for a win, one for a tie)
BGSU RESULTS LINE
419/372-7076, choose option 4
(same-day scores and brief summaries from all Falcon athletic teams)
