Bowling Green State University Athletics
Women's Soccer Season Set To Start
August 26, 2002 | Women's Soccer
Aug. 26, 2002
BOWLING GREEN, Ohio - The Bowling Green State University women's soccer team opens the 2002 season this week. After hosting an Alumnae Match Friday (Aug. 30), the Falcons of head coach Andy Richards and assistant Ashlee Orr will open the regular season with a Sunday (Sept. 1) match vs. Michigan State University. The Alumnae contest will begin at 6:00 p.m., with the MSU contest set to start at 2:00 p.m. at BGSU's Cochrane Field. To follow are some notes and numbers on the Falcons on the eve of the sixth season in school history...
SUCCESS IN EVEN YEARS
In the five-year history of the BGSU women's soccer program, the Falcons have had most of their success in the even-numbered years ... the Brown and Orange failed to qualify for the Mid-American Conference Tournament in 1997, 1999 and 2001 ... but, the Falcons advanced to the semifinals in 1998, losing in overtime to the eventual champion ... BGSU also made the tournament in 2000, and advanced all the way to the championship match before losing, again in OT.
SENIOR PRIDE
The Falcons welcome back 12 letterwinners from last year's squad, including eight starters ... coaches Andy Richards and Ashlee Orr will look to a small but solid group of seniors for leadership in 2002 ... the four seniors -- Jill Conover, Erika Flanders, Tracy Gleixner and Susan Wallace -- and junior Kasey Freeman are the lone players not recruited by Richards ... but, they have experienced some success under the current coaching staff, and hold a number of school records ... Conover is the BGSU career scoring leader with 55 points, while Gleixner's total of 20 goals gives her the career lead in that category ... Flanders holds virtually every BGSU goalkeeping record.
COPPES NAMED MAC NEWCOMER OF YEAR
BGSU's Kristy Coppes was named the 2001 MAC Newcomer of the Year, becoming the first Falcon women's soccer player in the five-year history of the program to win a league specialty award ... the award was announced at the MAC Tournament banquet in Athens, Ohio, on Nov. 8, 2001 ... Coppes, a native of Findlay, Ohio, had 12 goals in her initial collegiate season, tying the school single-season record originally set by Tracy Gleixner in 1998 ... she had 26 points, the second-highest total in BG annals, and just three points shy of that seasonal record (held by Gleixner) ... after just one season in the Brown and Orange, Coppes already ranks fourth on the BGSU career goals list, and seventh on the career points list.
FROSH FIND THE SCORESHEET
BGSU freshmen enjoyed their share of scoring success last year ... on the season, Falcon frosh had 18 of the team's 32 goals and 18 of the 35 assists.
FLANDERS SETS SAVES RECORD
For the third consecutive year, goalkeeper Erika Flanders set the school record for saves in a season ... Flanders made three saves in the 2001 season finale at Ball State, bringing her seasonal total to 127 saves ... Flanders had 91 saves as a freshman, and 118 stops as a sophomore in 2000 ... prior to her arrival on campus, the school's single-season record for saves was 76 ... Flanders holds the career marks in every goalkeeping category, including wins (22), saves (336), shutouts (10) and GAA (1.71).
FLANDERS GETS NATIONAL HONORS
Erika Flanders started the 2001 campaign with a bang ... she made nine saves in a shutout win at UW-Green Bay, then set a school single-match record with 17 saves in a tie at Michigan State ... her performance in those two matches earned her MAC Player-of-the-Week honors, and also got her named to two national teams, the Soccer America Team of the Week and the Soccer Buzz National Elite Team of the Week ... Flanders followed that performance with nine saves in a shutout win at Ohio State in mid-September ... she also had shutouts vs. Samford and Akron ... Flanders had scoreless streaks of 242:08 and a school-record 266:55 last year, and she now owns the five longest shutout streaks in BGSU history.
FALCON NOTES
BGSU finished the non-league portion of the schedule with a record of 5-1-1, including a perfect 3-0 home mark vs. non-conference foes ... the Falcons finished the home slate with a record of 4-4-1 ... the total of four victories matches the school mark for most home wins in a single season ... BGSU has won four matches at Cochrane Field in four of the first five seasons in the history of the program ... BGSU's 3-0-2 start to the 2001 season was the best in program history ... the Falcons' win at Northern Illinois marked the first time in school history that BGSU had rallied from a two-goal deficit to post a victory.
