Bowling Green State University Athletics
Falcons Open Season In New Mexico
February 13, 2003 | Softball
Feb. 13, 2003
BOWLING GREEN, Ohio -
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FALCONS TO OPEN 2003 SEASON IN NEW MEXICO
The Bowling Green State University softball team heads to New Mexico this weekend to open the 2003 season ... the Falcons of fifth-year head coach Leigh Ross-Shaw will head to Las Cruces to play five games in the NMSU Softball Tournament, hosted by New Mexico State ... BGSU will play both San Jose State and Mid-American Conference foe Marshall on Friday (Feb. 14), and will meet the host Aggies and Southwest Texas State on Saturday (Feb. 15) ... BG will close the tourney with a Sunday (Feb. 16) contest against Indiana ... the complete schedule follows:
Games played at Presley Askew Softball Complex
Friday, Feb. 14: Bowling Green vs. San Jose State, 8:30 a.m. Marshall at New Mexico State, 10:30 a.m. Eastern Illinois vs. Southwest Texas State, 12:30 p.m. Indiana vs. San Jose State, 2:30 p.m. Bowling Green vs. Marshall, 4:30 p.m. Eastern Illinois vs. Indiana, 6:30 p.m. Southwest Texas State at New Mexico State, 8:30 p.m.Saturday, Feb. 15: Indiana vs. Marshall, 8:30 a.m. Eastern Illinois vs. San Jose State, 10:30 a.m. Bowling Green at New Mexico State, 12:30 p.m. Indiana vs. Southwest Texas State, 2:30 p.m. Bowling Green vs. Southwest Texas State, 4:30 p.m. Marshall vs. San Jose State, 6:30 p.m. Eastern Illinois at New Mexico State, 8:30 p.m.
Sunday, Feb. 16: Eastern Illinois vs. Marshall, 8:00 a.m. Bowling Green vs. Indiana, 10:00 a.m. San Jose State at New Mexico State, 12:00 p.m. Southwest Texas State at New Mexico State, 2:00 p.m.
all times local to site
BGSU is coming off a 2002 season that saw the team go 22-25-1 overall and 11-13 in MAC play ... the Falcons missed qualifying for the MAC Tournament for the first time since 1997 ... Ross-Shaw returns 10 letterwinners, including five starters, from that squad.
HEAD COACH LEIGH ROSS-SHAW
Leigh Ross-Shaw begins 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 2001 MAC Coach of the Year, 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 conference 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).
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 August of 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), posted four-straight winning MAC marks for the first time ever from 1998-2001.
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.
ASSISTANT COACHES
Tami Summers enters her second season as a BGSU assistant ... 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 pct. (.703) ... Summers returned to her alma mater, serving as head coach in 1998 and 1999 ... Steve Babinski enters his first campaign as an assistant to Ross-Shaw ... Babinski, a graduate of Grace (Ind.) College, was a standout baseball player there ... he has spent the past several years coaching at the Bowling Green Christian Academy.
THE OPPONENTS
San Jose State took a 1-3 overall record into Wednesday's (Feb. 12) doubleheader at Santa Clara ... the Spartans opened the season by splitting a pair of games with Tennessee and dropping two contests to California ... last year, SJSU went 25-44 overall and placed fifth in the Western Athletic Conference with a league mark of 8-16 ... head coach Dee Dee Enabenter-Omidiji is in her third year with the Spartans ... she took a 52-88 record into the Santa Clara twinbill ... Enabenter-Omidiji was 480-242-2 in her 18th year overall, heading into Wednesday's games ... the school's athletics web site is www.sjsuspartans.com.
Marshall, like BGSU, begins the 2003 season in Las Cruces this weekend ... Friday afternoon's game vs. the Falcons marks the first contest of the season for the Thundering Herd ... last year, MU went 18-28 overall and tied the Falcons for third place in the East Division with a MAC mark of 11-13 ... head coach Shonda Stanton enters her fourth season with the Herd, with a 78-78 record ... she has an overall career mark of 105-103 ... the school's athletics web site is www.herdzone.com.
New Mexico State began the season by losing three games to Western New Mexico, by a combined score of 21-0 ... the Aggies were slated to host a Wednesday twinbill vs. Texas Tech ... head coach Lee Ann Jarvis has just three returning letterwinners, and welcomed 16 newcomers to her 2003 squad ... last season, NMSU had an overall mark of 20-43 and a Sun Belt Conference record of 2-14 ... Jarvis, 72-124 in her fourth year with the Aggies, had an overall mark of 590-482 in her 15th season, entering the TTU doubleheader ... the school's athletics web site is www.nmstatesports.com.
Southwest Texas State enters the weekend with an overall record of 3-8 ... the Bobcats dropped six games, including five to nationally-ranked teams, at last weekend's Fiesta Bowl Tournament at Arizona State ... a year ago, SWTU had an overall record of 37-22, and the Bobcats won the Southland Conference with a 23-4 league ledger ... head coach Ricci Woodard is 94-42 in her third season, all with SWTU ... the school's athletics web site is www.SWTBobcats.com.
Indiana opens the 2003 season this weekend ... the Hoosiers went 13-31-1 overall last season and 0-17 in Big Ten Conference action ... Sara Hayes enters her first season in Bloomington ... she has a 58-59 record as she begins her third year as a collegiate head coach ... the school's athletics web site is www.iuhoosiers.com.
THE SERIES
The Falcons lead the all-time series with San Jose State by a 1-0 margin ... in the lone previous meeting, BGSU captured a 3-2 win in eight innings in the National Invitation Tournament in 1993 ... BGSU holds a 16-1 advantage in the series with Marshall, and the Falcons have won the last eight meetings, including all three of last year's games ... the Falcons and Herd are not scheduled to meet in MAC play in the 2003 regular season ... New Mexico State holds a 3-1 advantage over BG in that series ... the most recent meeting was a 7-2 NMSU win at the Arizona Classic in 2001 ... BGSU is 1-0 against Southwest Texas State, having won a 7-2 contest at the Houston Classic in 1988 ... the Falcons trail Indiana by a 3-0 count in that series ... the teams have not met since a 2-1 IU win in 1994.
TRAUTH NOW AT SWT
Denise M. Trauth was named the President of Southwest Texas State University in June of 2002 ... Trauth, who came to SWTU from UNC-Charlotte, spent 10 years at BGSU ... while in Bowling Green, she served as an assistant professor of speech communication, and later was named associate dean of the Graduate College.
GO WEST
The Falcons, who have played in the East Division since the MAC went to a divisional format five years ago, have moved 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 the 2002 season 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 last year ... 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 in 2002.
MURPHY EARNS ALL-MAC HONORS
Three Falcons -- Holly Frantz and Renee Rosemeier and 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 season.
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 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 (La.-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).
NOTING 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) and Machain (.315) both 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 ... the senior class consists of Houle, Machain, Voshell and Wilson ... redshirt junior Liz Tuza is also in her fourth year with the Falcon program ... other returnees include juniors Candace Fenton, Jody Johnson, Kernahan and Valerie Tipton and sophomores Sara Edwards, Stephanie Finkel and Murphy ... Finkel sat out last season ... BGSU's newcomers include sophomore Kristen Anderson, a transfer from Eastern Michigan, as well as freshmen Natalie Armintrout, Abby Habicht, Lindsay Heimrich, Stefanie LeVan, Gina Rango and Liz Vrabel.
RUN SUPPORT
The Falcons scored eight or more runs just twice in the season's first 37 games ... but, BGSU scored at least eight runs in six of the 2002 season's final 11 contests ... BG tied a season high with 10 runs in a win at Toledo (April 22), then matched that total six days later vs. Buffalo ... then, at Detroit, the Falcons had 20 runs in a doubleheader sweep, before putting nine runs on the board in the final game of the year, a win at Ohio.
KERNAHAN KEPT HITTING
Jenifer Kernahan got off to a slow start at the plate last year, but was red-hot over the season's final few weeks ... Kernahan hit .460 (23-of-50) with nine runs scored and 11 RBI in the last 16 contests of the year ... she went 0-for-1 in the second game at Detroit (May 2) to snap a career-long 13-game hitting streak, tying the BGSU season best ... in that at-bat, a pinch-hit appearance, she grounded out, but advanced the two baserunners, to help set up the Falcons' seven-run seventh inning ... Kernahan led the Falcons with a .396 batting avg. in MAC games, and also paced the team in slugging (.547) in conference contests, while ranking second in on-base pct. (.418) ... prior to the final 16 games, Kernahan was hitting .175 with a total of eight hits in 21 games this year ... she raised her season average by 123 points to .298, good for fifth on the Falcons, during that time.
