Bowling Green State University Athletics
Falcons In Tennessee To Open 2002 Campaign
February 22, 2002 | Softball
Feb. 22, 2002
BOWLING GREEN, Ohio -
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The Bowling Green State University softball team heads to Tennessee this weekend to open the 2002 season ... the Falcons of fourth-year head coach Leigh Ross-Shaw will play a Friday (Feb. 22) doubleheader against Tennessee State ... first pitch of game one is set for 2:00 p.m. Central Time (3:00 p.m. BGSU time) at Tiger Field in Nashville.
Following the TSU twinbill, the Falcons will head to Cookeville, Tenn., to play four games in the 2002 Worth/Icebreaker Tournament over the weekend ... BGSU will play both Bradley and Louisville on Saturday (Feb. 23), and will meet Virginia and host Tennessee Tech on Sunday (Feb. 24) ... the complete schedule follows:
Games played at Tech Softball Field or Cane Creek Complex
Friday, Feb. 22: Virginia at Tennessee Tech, 3:00 p.m.Saturday, Feb. 23: Bowling Green vs. Bradley, 10:00 a.m. Middle Tennessee State vs. Virginia, 10:00 a.m. Bradley at Tennessee Tech, 1:00 p.m. Louisville vs. Virginia, 1:00 p.m. Middle Tennessee State at Tennessee Tech, 3:00 p.m. Bowling Green vs. Louisville, 3:00 p.m.
Sunday, Feb. 24: Bowling Green vs. Virginia, 10:00 a.m. Middle Tennessee State vs. Louisville, 10:00 a.m. Bowling Green at Tennessee Tech, 1:00 p.m. Virginia vs. Bradley, 1:00 p.m. Louisville at Tennessee Tech, 3:00 p.m. Bradley vs. Middle Tennessee State, 3:00 p.m.
The Falcons originally were scheduled to play five games, including a contest vs. Middle Tennessee State, at the tournament ... but, the tourney schedule was adjusted due to wet weather and field conditions at TTU.
BGSU is coming off a 2001 season that saw the team go 35-19 overall and 19-5 in Mid-American Conference play ... the Falcons won the MAC's East Division by three games ... BGSU's total of 35 wins tied for the second-most victories in school history.
HEAD COACH LEIGH ROSS-SHAW: Leigh Ross-Shaw begins her fourth season as a collegiate head coach, all with the Falcons, and has an overall record of 89-64 (.582) ... Ross-Shaw, the 2001 MAC Cocah of the Year, has a league mark of 47-23 (.671) after leading the Brown and Orange to a MAC East Division title last year and a co-championship in 2000 ... she has the best winning percentage, both overall and in conference games, of any coach in BGSU softball history ... she enters the 2002 season just 47 wins shy of the school's all-time leader, Jacquie Joseph.
Ross-Shaw assumed the top job after two years as BG's assistant coach. The Ottawa Lake, Mich., native 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 is the only coach in school history to string together three consecutive winning seasons in MAC play. The Falcons, who also had a winning league ledger in Ross-Shaw's last year as an assistant (1998), have posted four-straight winning MAC marks for the first time ever.
Ross-Shaw, a 1992 graduate of the University of Toledo, still holds numerous UT and MAC records, and remains the all-time conference leader in batting average (.398), at-bats and hits ... she hit a MAC-record .447 as a senior en route to All-America Second-Team honors ... in February of 2001, she was inducted into the UT Athletics Hall of Fame.
Lena Richards and Tami Summers each enter their first season as Ross-Shaw's assistants ... Richards, a native of East Lansing, Mich., played two years of softball at UT, earning All-MAC First-Team honors in both 1995 and 1996 ... Summers, a native of Tallmadge, Ohio, was a four-year letterwinner for the Rockets from 1984-87 ... she set school career records for appearances, innings pitched, strikeouts, ERA and winning percentage (.703) ... Summers returned to her alma mater, serving as head coach in 1998 and 1999.
THE OPPONENTS: Tennessee State will bring a 2-4 record into Friday's DH vs. the Falcons ... the Lady Tigers opened the year by sweeping a road twinbill at Alabama A&M, but were swept in home doubleheaders by both Indiana State and Tennessee ... last year, TSU went 13-26 overall and 8-13 in the Ohio Valley Conference ... head coach Joyce Maudie has been on the job for just over a month, having started on Jan. 16 ... the school's athletic web site is www.tsuteams.com.
Bradley, like BGSU, opens the season this weekend ... the TTU tourney marks the Braves' first action of the year ... last season, BU went 14-25 overall and 8-15 in Missouri Valley Conference play ... head coach Dean Shuda, in his first year in Peoria, is 192-83 entering his seventh year overall ... the school's athletic web site is www.bubraves.com.
Louisville brings a 2-6 record into the weekend ... the Cardinals dropped four games in Florida State's Seminole Challenge two weeks ago, before splitting four games in the Arizona Pepsi Challenge last weekend (Feb. 15-16) ... one of those two wins was a 4-3 victory over nationally-ranked Notre Dame ... last year, UL went 40-26 overall and 12-9 in Conference USA ... head coach Sandy Pearsall is 78-58 in her third year at the school ... Pearsall, who coached in the MAC at Miami prior to heading to UL, has an overall record of 328-394 in her 16th season ... the school's athletics web site is www.uoflsports.com.
Virginia is also coached by a former MAC coach, Cheryl Sprangel ... the Cavaliers opened the season with a 5-2 mark at last weekend's Triangle Classic in Raleigh, N.C. ... last season, the Cavaliers were 52-17 overall and 4-4 in the Atlantic Coast Conference ... Sprangel has a record of 152-109 in her fifth year at UVa. ... the former head coach at Toledo, she had a 461-355-1 mark in 14 years with the Rockets ... Virginia's athletic web site is www.virginiasports.com.
Tennessee Tech has a 2-2 record heading into weekend play, after splitting four games at South Carolina's tournament last weekend ... the Golden Eagles beat East Tennessee State and Jacksonville State, but lost to UAB and the host school ... last year, TTU went 44-20 overall and won the OVC with a 17-4 league mark ... head coach Tory Acheson is 118-79 in his fourth year in Cookeville ... he is 408-157 in his ninth year overall ... the school's athletic web site is www2.tntech.edu/athletics/.
THE SERIES: The Falcons lead the all-time series with Bradley by a 2-1 margin, but the teams have not met since 1992 ... BGSU trails Virginia by a 4-2 margin, and the Cavaliers went 3-0 vs. the Falcons in 2001 ... UVa won a 5-1 game at the Coastal Carolina Classic (March 13, 2001), then swept a twinbill by scores of 12-2 and 5-1 a week-and-a-half later at UVa's own Who's Hoo Tournament (March 24, 2001) ... the Falcons have never faced Louisville, Tennessee State or Tennessee Tech in softball.
STUDENT-TEACHER CONFERENCE: The BGSU coaching staff should be quite familiar with the coach in the other dugout when the Falcons face Virginia on Sunday morning ... UVa's Cheryl Sprangel spent 14 years as the head coach at Toledo ... during that time, all three of BGSU's current coaches -- head coach Leigh Ross-Shaw and assistants Lena Richards and Tami Summers (then Tami Johnston) -- played on Rocket teams under Sprangel's guidance.
ANOTHER SUCCESSFUL SEASON: Bowling Green posted a 35-19 (.648) overall record in 2001, in the process tying for the second-most wins in a season in school history ... the Falcons' winning percentage of .648 was the third-highest in BGSU annals ... the Brown and Orange welcome back a total of 15 letterwinners, including six starters, from that squad.
BGSU WINS THE EAST: The Falcons ended the 2001 season with a second consecutive MAC East Division championship ... BGSU went 19-5 in MAC play to capture the division by three games ... the Brown and Orange had tied for the division crown in 2000 after finishing in second place, a game out of first, in 1999 ... BGSU's MAC winning percentage of .792 in 2001 is the best in school history.
FALCONS BID FAREWELL TO STELLAR SENIOR CLASS: Ross-Shaw and new assistant coaches Lena Richards and Tami Summers will be looking to replace the four departed seniors from 2001 ... that senior class included three All-MAC Team members and the school's career home-run leader ... one of those seniors, first baseman Nikki Rouhana, was the league's player of the year, while centerfielder Jen Domschot joined her on the all-league first team ... second baseman Angie Domschot earned all-conference second-team honors as well as being named to the MAC's All-Tournament Team ... third baseman Lynsey Ebel ended her career with a school-record 14 homers, one ahead of Jen Domschot's total ... the four players, the Falcons' top-four hitters last spring, combined for 313 runs, 567 hits, 280 RBI and 167 extra-base hits during their BGSU tenure.
TWO ALL-MAC FIRST-TEAM PICKS RETURN: BGSU had a total of five All-MAC selections last year, including four first-team picks ... two of the all-league first-team selections return for the 2002 campaign in senior outfielder Renee Rosemeier and junior pitcher McKenna Houle ... Rosemeier had five homers and 39 RBI last year ... she would have set the school record in the latter category, had Ebel not surpassed her total by one ... Houle has won 11 games and posted an ERA of under 1.50 in each of her first two seasons.
ENTIRE PITCHING STAFF BACK, TOO: The entire BGSU pitching staff returns, as Houle is joined by three seniors -- Jessie Milosek, Andrea Genter and Rebekah Tipton -- and sophomore Jody Johnson ... Johnson, pitching mostly in relief, wound up with a 10-2 record and won her last nine decisions of the season ... she had an ERA of 0.58 in MAC play, second-lowest in the league ... Milosek, Genter and Houle all joined her in the top-10 in that category ... Milosek had eight wins and eight complete games ... Genter was 6-2 on the year, and allowed opponents to hit just .190 against her in league play.
MORE RETURNING STARTERS: Among positional players, a number of regulars return, including senior catcher Holly Frantz, junior shortstop Libby Voshell, sophomore outfielder Jenifer Kernahan, junior outfielder Kandice Machain and Rosemeier ... each of those five players started at least 29 games in 2001 ... Frantz had a team-best fielding percentage of .992, while Voshell enters her third year as the starter at short ... Kernahan displayed versatility in her initial campaign, starting 15 games in left field, six behind the plate and eight as the designated player ... Machain hit .323 in MAC games while holding down the number-two spot in the batting order.
RUN RULE: The Falcons scored a total of 227 runs in 2001, the most in school history ... the Falcons' 4.20 runs per game was the third-highest average ever ... the Brown and Orange had a team batting average of .264, the fourth highest in BG annals ... defensively, BGSU set a school record with a .959 fielding percentage.
