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Bowling Green State University Athletics
BGSU Softball Preseason Notes
February 10, 2003 | Softball
Feb. 10, 2003
BOWLING GREEN, Ohio - The Bowling Green State University softball team opens the season this Friday (Feb. 14), with a pair of games at the New Mexico State Tournament in Las Cruces, N.M. The Falcons are scheduled to face San Jose State and Marshall in Friday action, before meeting host NMSU and Southwest Texas State on Saturday (Feb. 15). On Sunday (Feb. 16), BGSU closes tourney action with a contest against Indiana.
The following are some preseason notes on the 2003 Falcons. A season outlook, plus the first press release of the season, will be available on bgsufalcons.com in the near future.
FALCONS FINISH 2002 SEASON AT 22-25-1
Bowling Green concluded the 2002 season with an overall record of 22-25-1 and a Mid-American Conference ledger of 11-13 ... BGSU finished in a tie for third place in the MAC's East Division ... head coach Leigh Ross-Shaw welcomes back 10 letterwinners, including five starters, from that team.
HEAD COACH LEIGH ROSS-SHAW
Leigh Ross-Shaw enters her fifth season as a collegiate head coach, all with the Falcons, and has an overall record of 111-89-1 (.555) ... Ross-Shaw, the MAC Coach of the Year in 2001, has a league mark of 58-36 (.617) ... she guided the Brown and Orange to a MAC East Division title in 2001 and a co-championship in 2000 ... Ross-Shaw has the best winning percentage in MAC games of any coach in BGSU softball history, and was the fastest coach in BG annals to get to 100 overall wins as well as 50 MAC victories ... Ross-Shaw is just 25 wins shy of the school's all-time leader, Jacquie Joseph (136-123 from 1989-93) ... Ross-Shaw's total of 58 MAC wins places her third behind Joseph (78-71) and Rachel Miller-Reif (71-84 from 1994-98).
GO WEST
The Falcons, who have played in the East Division since the MAC went to a divisional format five years ago, move to the West Division for the 2002-03 academic year ... the move was a result of the MAC's adding the University of Central Florida as a football-only member and placing UCF in the East Division.
AN UP-AND-DOWN SEASON IN 2002
The Falcons finished in a third-place tie with Marshall in the MAC's East Division, behind Akron and Ohio ... BGSU had a combined record of 5-2 against those three teams during the 2002 season ... but, the Falcons went just 2-7 vs. the teams that finished fifth through seventh in the East (Kent State, Buffalo and Miami) ... BGSU missed the MAC Tournament for the first time since 1997 ... the Falcons had been the lone MAC East Division team to qualify for each of the previous four league tournaments.
EVEN STEVEN
BGSU finished with .500 records in both home and away games ... the Falcons went 7-7-1 at the BGSU Softball Field, and posted a 10-10 record in road games ... the Brown and Orange finished 5-8 in neutral-site contests.
MURPHY EARNS ALL-MAC HONORS
Three Falcons -- seniors Holly Frantz and Renee Rosemeier and redshirt freshman Marla Murphy -- were named to the 2002 All-MAC Team ... all three players made the second team ... Murphy, a second baseman, is the lone returnee to the 2003 squad ... a native of Marion, Ohio, she hit .321 in her first full season as a Falcon ... Murphy batted .340, good for second on the team, in MAC games, and hit .583 (7-for-12) in her final five games of 2002 ... Murphy hit .433 over her last 15 games of the year, with a pair of three-hit games on the year.
DOUBLE YOUR PLEASURE...
The Falcons set a school record by hitting a total of 90 doubles in the 2002 season, breaking the old record of 76 set the previous spring ... the year 2002 marked the third consecutive season the team has set a new record ... the 2000 squad hit a then-record 63 two-baggers ... prior to that year, the BG single-season record was 59 doubles, set in 1993 ... the 2002 Falcons led the nation in doubles, with 1.88 per game ... that average easily outdistanced the second-place school (Louisiana-Lafayette, 1.68 dpg).
...DOUBLE YOUR FUN
In 2002, Falcon individuals posted three of the five highest totals on the BGSU single-season doubles list ... Natalie Phillips and Libby Voshell each ended the year with 16 doubles apiece ... Phillips and Voshell finished in a tie for second on the seasonal list, just one away from the school record (17, Dena Romstadt, 1993) ... in the individual NCAA rankings, Phillips was seventh in the country with 0.37 doubles per game, while Voshell was 11th (0.35) ... Voshell and Phillips tied for first in the MAC (ranked by total doubles, not dpg) ... senior Renee Rosemeier finished the year with seven doubles in her final six games, to total 14 on the season ... that is the fifth-highest seasonal total in school annals ... she ranked 25th in the nation with 0.30 dpg ... BGSU was the only team with three student-athletes ranked in the top-30 in that category ... Voshell will enter her senior year in fifth place on the BG career list, with 32 doubles ... Romstadt (1990-93) holds the career record, with 47.
YOU COULD LOOK IT UP
In addition to doubles, the Falcons also set school seasonal records in several categories ... BGSU set a single-season standard in batting average, with a mark of .289 ... that ranked the Falcons 27th in the nation ... the old record was .278, set by the 1988 team ... the 2002 Falcons also set a new slugging pct. best (.392), breaking the old mark of .386, set in 2000 ... BG's totals of 396 hits and 537 total bases were the second best in school history, while the 2002 team's fielding pct. (.956) ranks third on that list.
MACHAIN GETS ABOARD
Kandice Machain ended the year with a career-best 13-game hitting streak, and hit an even .400 (22-of-55) in that time ... Machain hit .483 (14-of-29) with eight runs and six RBI in the last seven contests of the year ... she ended the season with a team-high batting average of .337, and also led the Falcons in at-bats (169), hits (57), triples (four), homers (three), total bases (83) and slugging pct. (.491) ... Machain was second on the team in runs (24), on-base pct. (.374) and RBI (24).
SOME NOTES ON THE FALCON RETURNEES
Kandice Machain, as mentioned, led the 2002 Falcons in numerous categories, including batting (.337) ... Marla Murphy hit .321 on the season, while Libby Voshell hit .319 and led the Falcons with a .404 on-base pct. ... she was second behind Machain in slugging pct. (.452), and tied for the team doubles lead, with 16 ... in MAC games only, Jenifer Kernahan hit a team-best .396, followed by Murphy (.340) ... Voshell (.324), Machain (.315) and Phillips (.310) all hit over .300, as the Falcons hit .290 as a team in conference play ... in the circle, McKenna Houle enters her senior season as the most experienced pitcher on the squad ... she was 7-11 overall and 4-6 in MAC play last year, but won her last three decisions of the year, and went 2-0 with an ERA of just 0.62 in the season's final week ... Crystal Wilson's total of 20 RBI included a team-high 15 two-out RBI last spring.
