Bowling Green State University Athletics
Women's Soccer Falls In OT Of MAC Championship
November 05, 2000 | Women's Soccer
Nov. 5, 2000
BUFFALO, N.Y. - Danielle Berkemeier's goal at the 111:57 mark lifted Miami University to a 1-0 double-overtime victory over the Bowling Green State University women's soccer team. The Mid-American Conference Tournament championship match was held at the University at Buffalo's RAC Field.
The win sends the RedHawks, now 11-7-0, on to the NCAA Tournament, while the Falcons see the 2000 season come to an end with a 10-10-1 record.
The teams battled through two halves and one overtime period of scoreless play before Berkemeier's heroics. The winning goal came with Katie Milligan slid a cross from the right side to Berkemeier, who poked the ball past BGSU goalkeeper Erika Flanders.
The RedHawks outshot the Falcons by a 17-9 count, and Miami held an 11-6 edge in shots on goal. Flanders made 10 saves, several of the spectacular variety, while MU's Laura Degelleke had six stops.
The loss ended an improbable run for the Brown and Orange, the tournament's seventh seed. BGSU upset the tournament's second seed, Eastern Michigan, in the quarterfinal round Tuesday (Oct. 31), then stopped sixth-seeded Western Michigan in Friday's (Nov. 3) semifinal match.
For the Brown and Orange, Flanders, junior Beth Wechsler and senior Stephanie Heller all were named to the all-tournament team.
The Falcons of head coach Andy Richards will lose seven seniors -- Leslie Buse, Ashley Enser, Jamie Eshleman, Autumn Harris, Stephanie Heller, Michelle Lisy and Janice Mentrup -- off of the 2000 squad.
BG played the championship match without two of the team's top three scorers. Ashley Enser missed both the semifinal and the final after suffering a concussion in the EMU match, while sophomore Jill Conover broke her leg in the final seconds of the WMU contest.
"Without a doubt, this has been the most enjoyable, the most exciting and the most rewarding season I have ever had as a coach," said Richards. "It has been a real honor to work with such fantastic student-athletes who, as a group, have taken Bowling Green women's soccer to an entirely new level.
"As the season has gone on, we have become much more resilient and competitive. Over the last four or five matches, we have become a much more consistent team. The 2000 team has offered us a springboard on to better things, and it has been the efforts of every member of the team that have enabled us to do that.
"I think we surprised a lot of people this season. We gave it a great effort against Miami today. We prevented them from playing the way they like to play, we got a few chances ourselves, and they got a little bit of luck. Give them all the credit, they are the champions and they earned it. But, we certainly gave them a fight.
"It will be sad to say goodbye to our seniors -- we thank them for everything over the last four years -- but now we look forward to 2001 and our preparation for what we hope will be another successful season.
"I feel this group of players have brought a great deal of pride to the program, and, hopefully, we can continue to achieve success and attract more top-quality players to BGSU."
The Falcons, in the fourth year of the program's history, set a plethora of individual and team records this fall, including the single-season mark for wins. BGSU doubled the win total of the 1999 team, which finished 5-11-3.
