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Bowling Green State University Athletics
BGSU Seeks Homecourt Berth
January 05, 2000 | Volleyball
Nov. 15, 1999
TOP STORIES:
* - The Falcons can clinch a top-four seed and a homecourt berth in the quarterfinal round of the Mid-American Conference Tournament with a win at Buffalo Saturday (Nov. 20) ... the first through fourth seeds host seeds 5-8 on Nov. 23 ... even if BGSU loses at UB, the Falcons could still garner a homecourt berth if both Eastern Michigan and Miami lose once this week ... both the Eagles and RedHawks have two matches remaining in the MAC schedule ... BGSU could finish as high as the third seed, or as low as the sixth seed, depending upon this week's MAC outcomes.
* - Senior Lori Kemerer has reached yet another milestone ... Kemerer recorded her 500th career block Wednesday (Nov. 10) at Ball State ... she became only the second player in school history to amass 1,000 career kills, 1,000 career digs and 500 career blocks ... Kemerer joins Lisa Mika (1998-91) in that group.
* - BGSU closes the home portion of the regular season tomorrow night (Nov. 16) vs. Cleveland State ... prior to that non-conference match, the four Falcon seniors -- Heather Greig, Lori Kemerer, Melissa Lewis and Kris Pesorda -- will be honored as part of "Senior Night" festivities.
UP NEXT: The Bowling Green State University volleyball team, after falling out of first place in the MAC's East Division, still controls its own destiny in terms of earning a top-four seed and the accompanying homecourt berth for the league tournament's quarterfinal round. First, however, the Falcons will step out of league play to host Cleveland State. The Brown and Orange will complete the home portion of the regular-season slate with Tuesday's (Nov. 16) match against the Vikings. That contest will begin at 7:00 p.m. at BGSU's venerable Anderson Arena (5,000).
On Saturday (Nov. 20), the Falcons will end the regular season with a road contest against Buffalo. First serve is scheduled for 1:00 p.m. at UB's Alumni Arena (8,500).
BGSU has clinched a berth in the MAC Tournament, and will play a quarterfinal match a week from Tuesday (Nov. 23).
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 314 career victories, and her 144 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.
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 staff.
ABOUT THE FALCONS: Bowling Green enters the CSU match with an overall record of 18-11 and a MAC slate of 11-6. After winning 11 of the previous 12 matches, the Falcons dropped two of three road contests last week. BGSU lost a four-game match at Ball State, beat Toledo in four games, then dropped a three-game affair to Eastern Michigan.
BGSU enters the final week of the regular season in second place in the MAC's East Division, a game-and-a-half behind Akron. The Falcons could tie for the division crown with a win over Buffalo, coupled with UA losses to both BSU and Central Michigan.
Regardless of Akron's results this week, the Falcons can clinch at least the fourth seed for the tournament -- and a homecourt berth for the MAC Tournament -- with a win at UB.
A Falcon loss at Buffalo could place the Falcons as low as the sixth seed, if EMU and Miami both win their remaining matches. Eastern faces Marshall and Northern Illinois this week, while MU meets UT and Ohio.
Individually, senior Melissa Lewis leads the Falcons with 466 kills on the season. Lewis is second in the MAC with 4.57 kills per game, and is hitting .289 this year. Classmate Heather Greig has dished out 1,135 assists, an average of 11.13 per game. Another senior, Lori Kemerer, leads BG -- and the MAC -- in blocks per game (1.44). She also leads the team in digs per game (3.09), with Lewis (2.99 dpg) a close second in that category. Kemerer led the Brown and Orange in kills in each match last week, and is hitting .303 in league play.
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 (17-12)_______________12-4 Bowling Green (18-11)_______11-6 Miami (14-12)________________9-7 Marshall (14-13)_____________8-8 Kent (11-16)_________________8-8 Buffalo (11-17)_____________4-12 Ohio (9-19)_________________3-13West Division Ball State (24-5)___________15-1 Western Michigan (23-5)_____15-2 Eastern Michigan (18-10)_____9-7 Northern Illinois (8-15)____5-11 Toledo (7-20)_______________4-12 Central Michigan (6-21)_____2-14
ABOUT THE OPPONENTS: Cleveland State enters the week with an overall record of 8-19, and the Vikings completed Midwestern Collegiate Conference play with a 3-9 slate. CSU plays at Eastern Michigan tonight (Nov. 15) before coming to BGSU for tomorrow's contest. The Vikings have been idle since a four-game win over Butler on Nov. 6. That win broke a five-match losing streak. Last year, CSU finished 15-17 overall and 5-7 in MCC action. Debbie Borsz has a 69-118 record in her sixth season as a collegiate head coach, all at CSU.
Buffalo is 11-17 overall, and the Bulls will take a 4-12 MAC record into Friday's (Nov. 19) home contest vs. Toledo. The Bulls have lost four consecutive matches, including last weekend's home setbacks to Kent (four games) and Miami (three games). In 1998, UB finished 10-23 overall and 0-18 in MAC action. Nadine Lilavois, in her first year at Buffalo, is 80-148 in her ninth year as a head coach.
THE SERIES: The Falcons trail Cleveland State, 13-9, in the all-time series, and the Vikings won a five-game match in BG last Nov. 3. That win broke an eight-match Falcon winning streak, dating to 1984. Last year's CSU triumph also snapped a five-match home win streak for BG in the series. The Falcons are 6-4 in home matches in the series.
BGSU leads Buffalo by a 2-0 margin in a series that began last year. The Falcons captured a three-game win last Oct. 2, and BG won another three-gamer this year (15-11, 15-3, 15-7), on Nov. 5. Both prior matches were held in Anderson Arena.
LAST WEEK: The Falcons dropped two of three matches last week ... despite a solid effort from Lori Kemerer, the Falcons fell to red-hot Ball State (7-15, 7-15, 15-12, 11-15) in Wednesday action (Nov. 10) ... Kemerer hit a team-best .389 and recorded her 500th career block, but it wasn't enough ... Kemerer also had 17 kills to tie for team honors with Melissa Lewis ... Kate Yeo led the Brown and Orange with 13 digs, while Lewis and Amber Vorst also hit double digits with 12 and 11, respectively ... two days later, Kemerer led the way as the Falcons gutted out a four-game win (15-5, 13-15, 15-5, 15-6) over host Toledo ... Kemerer led the Brown and Orange in a plethora of categories, including kills (21), hitting percentage (.487), digs (20) and blocks (8) ... Lewis had 16 kills and 16 digs in the win, while Caty Rommeck had 12 kills and hit .462 ... Heather Greig recorded 53 assists and 11 digs, and the 5-6 setter had a career-high seven total blocks ... BG hit .310 as a team, while holding the Rockets to a hitting percentage of .097 ... the Falcons held a 12-4 advantage in blocks, and BGSU had six of those blocks in the fourth game ... Saturday (Nov. 13), host Eatern Michigan took it to the Falcons in a three-game win (15-3, 15-5, 15-11) that gave EMU a sweep of the season series ... the three-game setback was BGSU's first since Oct. 1, and BG's 19 total points tied the 1999 season low ... for the Brown and Orange, Rommeck was the top hitter, with a .316 percentage, while Kemerer was the team leader in kills, with nine ... defensively, Greig had a team-high 11 digs, while Rommeck had five block assists ... Kemerer and JoAnna Papageorgiou each had four blocks on the afternoon.
FALCON NOTES:
The Falcons could triple last season's MAC win total with a victory at Buffalo ... BGSU, 4-14 in conference play last year, is 11-6 this season ... BGSU concluded the home portion of the MAC schedule with a 6-3 slate, and the team is 5-3 in league road matches this year ... BGSU went 2-7 in MAC road matches last fall ... senior Lori Kemerer led the Falcons by hitting .358 with 4.27 kills per game last week ... it marked the second-straight week that she led BG in those two categories ... Wednesday at Ball State, Kemerer became just the second player in BGSU history with 1,000 kills, 1,000 digs and 500 blocks in her career ... Kemerer, who surpassed the millennium mark in digs during the Wright State match (Oct. 5), now has 1,214 kills, 1,154 digs and 512 total blocks in her Falcon career ... Kemerer ranks seventh on the BGSU career list in kills ... she has moved into third place on the digs list, and is second in total blocks ... in fact, Kemerer needs just 10 more block assists to become the BGSU all-time leader in that category ... with 403 career block assists, she trails first-place Lisa Mika (413 from 1988-91) ... Kemerer is fifth in attack attempts (3,182) and sixth in solo blocks (109) ... senior Melissa Lewis now has 1,216 career kills, good for sixth place on the BGSU list (two ahead of Kemerer) ... Lewis ranks seventh all-time in school history with 3,130 career attack attempts ... senior Heather Greig is fifth in school annals with 2,460 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 ... Greig has at least three more matches (Cleveland State, Buffalo and the MAC Tournament quarterfinal) to try to get the 159 assists needed to reach Teaman ... senior Kris Pesorda has moved into the top-10 lists in several blocking categories ... she ranks ninth with 227 block assists, and is 10th with 244 total blocks ... additionally, Pesorda has 270 career assists ... she ranks ninth all-time at BGSU, and is the highest-ranking non-setter on that list ... on the school single-season lists, Lewis has recorded 466 kills to rank seventh ... her season total of 1,131 attack attempts this year ranks ninth ... Kemerer's 109 block assists tie her for seventh on that seasonal list, while Greig's 1,135 assists are the 10th-most in a season ... Greig, a 5-foot-6 setter, set career highs with six block assists and seven total blocks in Friday's win at Toledo ... Amber Vorst set career standards with five blocks (all block assists) in the UT match ... the Falcons' 18 wins this season represents the team's highest total since 1993 ... BGSU still can finish in a tie with Akron for the East Division title, and for third place overall ... the Falcons need to beat Buffalo while Akron loses each of this week's two MAC matches ... if those teams tie at 12-6, BG would win the tiebreaker by virtue of a win in the only head-to-head meeting between the teams ... a BGSU loss at UB could drop the Falcons into a tie with Eastern Michigan and/or Miami (provided those schools win each of their two matches this week) ... the Falcons would lose tiebreakers with both the Eagles and the RedHawks ... EMU swept the two-match season series from BG, while Miami won the only meeting with the Brown and Orange.
FALCON QUICK FACTS
THIS WEEK
Cleveland State at BGSU
Tue., Nov. 16 - Anderson Arena
7:00 p.m.
BGSU at Buffalo - Sat., Nov. 20
Buffalo, New York - 1:00 p.m.
LAST WEEK
at Ball State 3, BGSU 1
Wed., Nov. 10 - Muncie, Indiana
BGSU 3, at Toledo 1
Fri., Nov. 12 - Toledo, Ohio
at Eastern Michigan 3, BGSU 0
Sat., Nov. 13 - Ypsilanti, Michigan
1999 RECORDS
Overall: 18-11 (.621)
Mid-American Conf.: 11-6 (.647)
HEAD COACH - Denise Van De Walle (17th season)
Alma Mater: Ball State, 1976
Record at BGSU: 314-211
Overall Career Record: 314-211
ASSISTANT COACHES
Tom Hanna (fourth season)
Alma Mater: Marist, 1991
Wendy Teaman (first season)
Alma Mater: Bowling Green, 1998
BOWLING GREEN RECORDS
All-Time: 412-327-3 (.557) (1976-present / 24th year)
MAC: 144-112 (.563) (1983-present / 17th year)
BGSU RESULTS LINE
419/372-7076, choose option 4
(same-day scores and brief summaries from all Falcon athletic teams)
