Oct. 27, 2002
Final Stats
BOWLING GREEN, Ohio -
Denise Papke's goal with 2:13 left in regulation capped a furious Northern Illinois University comeback and lifted the Huskies to a 3-2 victory over the Bowling Green State University women's soccer team Sunday afternoon at BGSU's Cochrane Field.
The Huskies (6-11-0, 4-8-0 MAC) scored three goals after trailing, 2-0, with under 20 minutes remaining in the second half. Katie Klaas and Tiffany Anderson also scored for the visitors.
BGSU (10-7-2, 7-4-1 MAC) got a goal and an assist from freshman Julie Trundle, while classmate Keeley Dayton also found the back of the net.
Despite the loss, the Falcons remain in third place due to Buffalo's 3-0 win over Ohio Sunday. BGSU, picked to place ninth in the MAC regular-season standings, will finish either third or fourth in the 13-team league, depending upon the outcome of one final conference match next weekend.
On BGSU's "Senior Day," the teams played to a scoreless draw for much of the first half before the Falcons got on the board. The first goal continued a recent trend of scoring off set pieces for the Brown and Orange.
After NIU's Maggie Nowicki hauled down BGSU's Dayton and was issued a yellow card, the Falcons had a free kick in the Huskie end of the field. Freshman Natalie Sampiller took the kick from the right side, and lofted a cross into the penalty box. Trundle ran onto the ball and drilled a header past NIU goalkeeper Leigh Steigerwald. The goal came at the 37:39 mark.
Just over six minutes later, the Falcons doubled the lead after some solid defense by BG 'keeper Erika Flanders at the other end. With a minute and a half left before intermission, Flanders made a point-blank save on a wide-open Papke. Then, action went the other way, and Trundle took the ball down the left side and slid a centering pass to Dayton. Dayton made a sliding effort to poke the ball past Steigerwald with just 1:03 remaining in the half.
The match remained 2-0 until just 18:25 remained in the contest, when Klaas made a long run down the center of the field and let fly with a shot that nestled just under the crossbar from approximately 20 yards out.
Then, the Huskies tied the contest with under nine minutes left. An errant BG pass toward the Falcons' own net sent Anderson in all alone on Flanders. She scored on the breakaway, tying the game at 81:39.
It appeared that the Falcons had weathered the storm after Papke rang a shot off the post with just over five minutes left, but she had one more shot in the match, and she made it count.
After a BG foul, Nowicki lofted the free kick into the penalty box on the left side. Papke one-timed the ball with an improbable backheel, blooping the ball over Flanders and into the net.
The Falcons had one more shot attempt in the match, but could not put it past relief GK Carrie Dvorak, and the visitors had the come-from-behind win.
The Falcons outshot the Huskies by a 27-19 count, and BGSU had a slim 12-11 advantage in shots on goal. Flanders made eight saves in the match, as did Steigerwald. Dvorak made two saves in a scoreless final 24:38 to earn the win.
"Naturally, we're extremely disappointed with the result," said BGSU head coach Andy Richards. "And, we are very disappointed in the fact that we gave away a 2-0 lead.
"We learned another lesson today. In any game, we must never relax for even one minute. It doesn't matter who we're playing or where we're playing, we must stay on top of our game for the full 90 minutes. If we do relax or take things for granted, then we will get exactly what we deserve, which is what we got today.
"We didn't deserve to win that game in the end, because, when we had the chance, we didn't do the things that we needed to do to put the game away. We needed to keep possession, to prevent them from getting going, and -- most importantly -- score a third goal to put them away.
"Once again, we have learned a lesson. Never, ever relax until the final whistle, particularly when playing a conference foe. We now look forward to playing Wright State and then playing in the conference tournament. Hopefully, all the lessons we have learned this year will benefit us down the line."
The Falcons will end the regular season with a Friday (Nov. 1) non-conference match at Wright State. Then, BGSU will open Mid-American Conference Tournament action with a home quarterfinal contest on Tuesday, Nov. 5. Starting time and opponent for that match will be determined.
NOTES
Despite the loss, the Falcons still finished the MAC portion of the schedule with school records for wins and points ... BGSU went 7-4-1 in league play, amassing 22 points, and the Brown and Orange will host a MAC Quarterfinal match for the first time in school history.
That quarterfinal match, set for Nov. 5, will be against either Buffalo or Eastern Michigan ... there is only one regular-season MAC contest remaining, as Ohio plays at Marshall on Friday (Nov. 1) ... should Ohio win that match, the Bobcats would move past the Falcons into third place, giving BG the fourth seed and pitting the Falcons against UB ... a Marshall win over OU would give the Falcons third place and a first-round match with EMU ... UB and EMU tied for fifth place with 17 points apiece, but the Bulls win the tiebreaker for the fifth seed by virtue of a win in the teams' head-to-head meeting.
The match marked a payback of sorts for NIU, as BGSU had rallied from a two-goal deficit for a victory in the teams' 2001 meeting in DeKalb ... in that match, Beth Rieman scored a pair of goals and had an assist.
Freshman Keeley Dayton's goal was the first of her collegiate career ... Dayton becomes the fifth Falcon freshman to find the back of the net this season.
A number of BGSU streaks came to an end in the NIU match ... among them: Samantha Meister's school-record streak of five consecutive matches with a goal, Leslie Dawley's school-record four consecutive contests with an assist, Britt Anderson's three-match goal-scoring streak, the Falcons' school record-tying five-match unbeaten streak, and Erika Flanders' current shutout streak of 222:09 (fifth-longest in school history).
While all of the aforementioned streaks came to an end, freshman Julie Trundle continued several of her current streaks, and added her name to the Falcon record books ... Trundle had an assist for the fourth consecutive match, tying the BGSU record set by Dawley in Friday's win over Western Michigan ... Trundle scored a point in her fifth consecutive match, matching Meister's school mark set two days prior.
Trundle has heated up over the last two weeks ... she has a total of 10 points over the last five matches, on two goals and six assists ... Trundle now has 15 points on the season, good for second on the team ... she leads the Falcons with seven assists this year ... Trundle has 13 points in MAC contests, just one point behind team leader Kristy Coppes.
Although Meister's goal-scoring streak came to an end, it certainly wasn't due to lack of effort ... she had a team-high six shot attempts, including two shots on goal and several other close calls ... a third shot off the foot of Meister, less than a minute after she reentered the match in the second half, rang off the crossbar.
Despite suffering the loss Sunday, Flanders finished the MAC portion of the schedule with a solid 1.06 goals-against average in league matches ... she made 75 saves in those 12 contests, with a saves percentage of .852 and five shutouts.
Overall, Flanders has a 1.18 GAA and 120 saves this year ... she is close to breaking her own single-season records in those categories ... her current records are a 1.37 GAA in 2000 and a total of 127 saves last year ... Flanders, who holds every BGSU goalkeeping record, is likely to break her single-season mark for saves pct. ... she currently has a pct. of .839 this year, well over her existing record of .808 in 2000.
Flanders, as mentioned, had eight saves vs. the Huskies ... she now has a career total of 456 saves, more than all of the other goalies in school history combined (280).
In the first 19 matches of the year, BGSU's players in the starting lineups have accounted for 16 goals and 20 assists ... the Falcon substitutes have accumulated a total of 16 goals and 19 assists.
The BGSU starting lineup included five freshmen, four sophomores, one junior and one senior ... coach Andy Richards has started at least three frosh in each of the 19 matches this season, and four or more in each of the last 18 contests ... the Falcons have had five or more frosh in the starting lineup on 14 occasions this year.
Sunday's loss means that the Falcons still have four home wins this season ... that ties the school record ... the Falcons have had four home wins in five of the program's six seasons ... BGSU will have another chance to set a new record, as the Falcons host an opponent to be determined in the quarterfinal round of the MAC Tournament.
For good or bad, the Falcons have set a school single-season record for yellow cards, with 11 ... BGSU opponents have been issued six yellow cards this fall ... over the years, BG has received 43 YC's to the foes' 56 ... no Falcon player or coach has ever received a red card, while the opponents have had four (none since 1999).
The Falcons had a season-high 27 shot attempts vs. the Huskies, and the team's total of 12 shots on goal was the second-highest total this year ... BG had 16 SOG Friday vs. WMU ... the Falcons, after having more shots than the opponent in just three of the first 15 matches, have held the advantage on three of the last four contests.
