Bowling Green State University Athletics
Leigh Ross-Shaw Named MAC Coach Of The Year
May 09, 2001 | Softball
May 9, 2001
MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. - Bowling Green State University's Leigh Ross-Shaw has been named the 2001 Mid-American Conference Softball Coach of the Year, it was announced Wednesday evening (May 9). The announcement was made at the MAC Tournament banquet, held on the campus of Central Michigan University.
The coach-of-the-year award is determined by a vote of the MAC's 13 head coaches.
Ross-Shaw has guided the Falcons to a 34-17 record entering the MAC Tournament, and she led BGSU to a 19-5 record in MAC play and the East Division title. BG's .792 winning percentage in league games is a school record.
Ross-Shaw, in her third season as the Falcon head coach, has an overall record of 88-62 (.587), and a MAC mark of 47-23 (.671). She guided the Brown and Orange to a division co-championship in 2001 before winning the title outright this season.
The Ottawa Lake, Mich., assumed the top job after two years as BG's assistant coach. She came to the Falcon program in 1996 after serving as a high-school head coach, at Notre Dame Academy in Toledo, for four seasons.
Ross-Shaw, a 1992 graduate of the University of Toledo, still holds numerous UT and MAC records as a player. She hit a MAC-record .447 as a senior en route to All-America Second-Team honors. On February 2, 2001, she was inducted into the UT Athletics Hall of Fame.
The Falcons have posted back-to-back 30-win seasons for just the second time in school history.
Ross-Shaw is just the third BGSU coach to be named league coach of the year, joining Gail Davenport (1988) and Jacquie Joseph (1993).
The Falcons, the second seed for the MAC Tournament, will open tourney play with a 3:00 p.m. game Thursday (May 10). BGSU will face the winner of Thursday morning's contest between #3 Ball State and #6 Northern Illinois.
The six-team, double-elimination tourney, hosted by CMU, is scheduled to run through Saturday (May 12).
