Bowling Green State University Athletics
Falcon Volleyball Looks To Continue Recent Success
January 05, 2000 | Volleyball
Oct. 25, 1999
TOP STORIES:
* - Bowling Green has won eight matches in a row heading into Wednesday's (Oct. 27) home contest vs. Eastern Michigan ... the winning streak is the Falcons' longest since a 10-match streak in 1992 ... the school record is 11 consecutive wins, set in 1991.
* - The Falcons' win at Akron Saturday (Oct. 23) marked the second time during the win streak that BG has captured a match after losing the first two games ... BGSU also turned the trick in the first Kent meeting of the year (Oct. 8).
* - BGSU's win at Oakland Tuesday was the Falcons' 12th victory of the season, topping last year's win total with 11 regular-season matches to spare ... BGSU is now 14-8 after finishing with an 11-21 record last season.
UP NEXT: The Bowling Green State University volleyball team, riding an eight-match winning streak, returns home for a midweek Mid-American Conference contest against Eastern Michigan. The Falcons and Eagles will meet in a Wednesday (Oct. 27) match, with first serve set for 7:00 p.m. at BGSU's venerable Anderson Arena (5,000). The Brown and Orange then will take to the road for a Halloween matchup at Marshall. That match will begin at 3:00 p.m. Sunday (Oct. 31) at MU's Henderson Center (9,043).
DENISE VAN DE WALLE: Denise Van De Walle, the dean of MAC mentors, is in her 17th year with the Falcons. She is the second-winningest coach in MAC history with 310 career victories, and her 140 MAC wins also rank her second all-time. Van De Walle reached the 300-win mark for her career Sept. 10, when the Falcons swept Mississippi State at the Marquette Challenge.
Tom Hanna is in his fourth season as Van De Walle's assistant, while former Falcon setter Wendy (Watkins) Teaman is in her first year on the BG coaching staff.
ABOUT THE FALCONS: Bowling Green enters the EMU match with a 14-8 overall record and a 7-3 MAC slate. The Falcons went 3-0 last week, winning road matches at Oakland Tuesday (Oct. 19), Kent Friday (Oct. 22) and Akron Saturday (Oct. 23). BGSU downed the Golden Grizzlies in three games, the Golden Flashes in four games and the Zips in five games.
Senior Melissa Lewis, who has led the Falcons in kills in 19 of this season's 22 matches, has 354 kills (4.60 per game) on the season. Lewis is hitting .295 this year, including a .308 percentage in MAC play. Classmate Heather Greig has dished out 839 assists, an average of 10.90 per game. Another senior, Lori Kemerer, leads BG in blocks per game (1.37) and digs per game (3.19). Lewis (3.04 dpg) is a close second in the latter category.
Last season, the Falcons finished with an overall record of 11-21. BG finished in sixth place in the MAC's seven-team East Division with a 4-14 league record.
MAC STANDINGS:
Team (Overall)_______________MAC East Division Akron (12-10)________________7-2 Bowling Green (14-8)_________7-3 Marshall (13-8)______________7-3 Miami (12-9)_________________7-4 Kent (7-13)__________________4-5 Buffalo (9-13)_______________2-8 Ohio (7-15)__________________1-9West Division Western Michigan (19-3)_____11-0 Ball State (17-5)____________9-1 Eastern Michigan (13-8)______5-5 Northern Illinois (6-11)_____2-7 Central Michigan (5-15)______2-8 Toledo (4-17)_______________1-10
ABOUT THE OPPONENTS: Eastern Michigan is 13-8 overall this season, and the Eagles will bring a 5-5 MAC record into Wednesday's match. EMU played just once last week, winning a four-game match at Toledo. The Eagles, who have won three of the last four matches, have already topped last year's win total. EMU went 11-19 overall a year ago, finishing fifth in the MAC's West Division with a 7-11 league record. Kim Berrington is 39-66 in her fourth year at EMU, and 142-142 in her eighth year as a collegiate head coach.
Marshall is 13-8 on the year, and the Thundering Herd is 7-3 in MAC action heading into a Friday (Oct. 29) home contest vs. Miami. MU is tied with BGSU for second place in the MAC's East Division. The Herd split a pair of road matches last weekend, losing a four-game match at Western Michigan Friday (Oct. 22) before winning a three-game set at Central Michigan the following night. A year ago, Marshall finished 20-14, and placed fourth in the MAC's East Division with a league ledger of 11-7. Steffi Legall is 45-40 in her third year as a head coach, all at MU.
THE SERIES: The Falcons lead the all-time series with each of this week's opponents. BGSU holds advantages of 23-13 vs. Eastern Michigan and 3-1 over Marshall.
BGSU's series record vs. EMU includes a 10-5 record in home matches. The Falcons have won six-straight matches over the Hurons/Eagles at Anderson Arena, but BG has not hosted Eastern since the 1996 season. The Eagles won the last meeting, a five-game set in Ypsilanti, Mich., last Oct. 16. The hosts captured a 16-14 fifth game.
The series with Marshall begin in 1997, as the Falcons swept a home-and-home series with a pair of three-game wins. The Brown and Orange extended the win streak to three matches with a four-game victory in Huntington last Sept. 25, but the Herd exacted revenge with a five-game victory at Anderson last Nov. 6.
LAST WEEK: The Falcons went 3-0 on the road last week, extending the team's winning streak to eight matches ... on Tuesday (Oct. 22), the Brown and Orange recorded a three-game win at Oakland (15-6, 15-4, 15-7) ... the Falcons hit .313 as a team, while holding the Golden Grizzlies to a hitting percentage of .084 ... senior Melissa Lewis led the team with 15 kills and a .424 hitting percentage, while classmate Kris Pesorda had 10 kills and a .368 hitting mark ... sophomore Caty Rommeck, a transfer from Oakland, had five kills and hit .500 (5-1-8) in her first match against her old team ... sophomore Shyann Robinson, also a transfer from OU, had three kills in the match ... freshman Kate Yeo had a team-high nine digs ... on Friday (Oct. 22), the Falcons recorded a four-game win at Kent (11-15, 15-12, 15-4, 15-10) ... Lewis again had 15 kills to lead four Falcons in double digits ... she had a match-high 19 digs ... Lewis had a pair of solo blocks as well ... senior Lori Kemerer also had a double-double, with 14 kills and 14 digs ... Amber Vorst contributed 11 kills and 14 digs to the cause ... Pesorda had 10 kills, while Yeo had 11 digs ... Heather Greig had 42 assists in the win ... BGSU hit .252 to Kent's .178 ... on Saturday (Oct. 23), BGSU topped East Division-leading Akron in five games ... the Falcons, after losing the first two games, captured the next three (14-16, 7-15, 15-7, 15-8, 16-14) ... Lewis again led the Falcons in kills, with a match-high 26 ... Rommeck had 22 kills and led the team with a .425 hitting percentage (22-5-40) and six blocks ... Greig had a career-high 68 assists ... Kemerer had 14 kills and 21 digs, while Vorst had 10 kills and 12 digs ... Yeo had 14 digs, while Lewis and Pesorda had 13 apiece ... BGSU outhit the opponent for the sixth consecutive match, hitting .238 to Akron's .167.
FALCON NOTES: The Falcons' current eight-match winning streak is the team's longest in seven years ... BGSU had a 10-match win streak from Sept. 18-Oct. 10, 1992 ... the school record for consecutive wins is 11, set in 1977 (Oct. 25-Nov. 11) and tied by the 1991 team (Oct. 5-Nov. 2) ... during the current winning streak, senior Melissa Lewis is hitting .340 with 4.94 kills per game ... during that time, sophomore Caty Rommeck has hit .298 with an average of 1.00 blocks per game ... junior JoAnna Papageorgiou, who was sidelined due to injury, is slowly working her way back into the lineup ... "Pop" started the first 12 matches of the year, but then missed the next five contests ... she has seen brief action in each of the last five matches ... earlier in October, senior Lori Kemerer became just the third player in BGSU history with 1,000 kills, 1,000 digs and 400 blocks in her career ... Kemerer, who surpassed the millennium mark in digs during the Wright State match (Oct. 5), now has 1,129 kills, 1,093 digs and 476 total blocks in her BGSU career ... Kemerer ranks seventh on the BGSU career lists in both kills and digs, and she is third in total blocks ... she is one kill out of sixth, and 10 total blocks behind second-place Tammy Schiller (1988-91) ... additionally, Kemerer ranks second at the school in career block assists (368), fifth in attack attempts (2,995) and is tied for sixth in solo blocks (108) ... Lewis has led BG in kills in 19 of this season's 22 matches ... she surpassed the 1,000-kill mark for her career earlier this month, just the ninth player to do so ... Lewis now has 1,104 career kills, good for eighth place on the BGSU career list ... Lewis ranks eighth all-time in school history with 2,840 career attack attempts ... senior Heather Greig is fifth in school history with 2,164 career assists ... her next target is Wendy (Watkins) Teaman, Greig's former teammate and a current BGSU assistant coach, who had 2,619 assists in a BG uniform.
FALCON QUICK FACTS
THIS WEEK
Eastern Michigan at BGSU - Wed., Oct. 27
Anderson Arena - 7:00 p.m.
BGSU at Marshall - Sun., Oct. 31
Huntington, W. Va. - 3:00 p.m.
LAST WEEK
BGSU 3, at Oakland 0
Tues., Oct. 19 - Rochester, Mich.
BGSU 3, at Kent 1
Fri., Oct. 22 - Kent, Ohio
BGSU 3, at Akron 2
Sat., Oct. 22 - Akron, Ohio
1999 RECORDS
Overall: 14-8 (.636)
Mid-American Conf.: 7-3 (.700)
HEAD COACH - Denise Van De Walle (17th season)
Alma Mater: Ball State, 1976
Record at BGSU: 310-208
Overall Career Record: 310-208
ASSISTANT COACHES
Tom Hanna (fourth season)
Alma Mater: Marist, 1991
Wendy Teaman (first season)
Alma Mater: Bowling Green, 1998
BOWLING GREEN RECORDS
All-Time: 408-324-3 (.557) (1976-present / 24th year)
MAC: 140-109 (.562) (1983-present / 17th year)
BGSU RESULTS LINE
419/372-7076, choose option 4
(same-day scores and brief summaries from all Falcon athletic teams)
