Bowling Green State University Athletics
Falcons Begin 2003 Preseason Workouts
August 14, 2003 | Women's Soccer
Aug. 14, 2003
BOWLING GREEN, Ohio - The Bowling Green State University women's soccer team members reported to campus Wednesday (Aug. 13), and the team has begun preseason practice in preparation for the 2003 campaign. The Falcons of head coach Andy Richards will begin the seventh season in program history with a trip to Hawai'i for the OHANA Hotels and Resorts No Ka Oi Tournament on Aug. 30-31.
The Falcons have a total of 26 student-athletes in camp. BG welcomes 16 letterwinners, including 10 starters, back from a 2002 squad that posted the best record in school history. In addition, Richards, assistant coach Ashlee Orr and volunteer assistant Darin Karbler welcome seven newcomers, including six freshmen, to the 2003 team.
The team's home opener is Friday, Sept. 5, vs. Eastern Illinois. That match, scheduled for a 2:00 p.m. start, is the first of seven home contests in the month of September. A total of 10 of the Falcons' 21 matches are slated for Cochrane Field.
A few notes and numbers as the Falcons prepare for the coming season...
THE CAPTAINS
The Falcons' two veteran seniors, Kasey Freeman and Carrie Richards, will co-captain the 2003 squad ... Freeman, the lone fourth-year Falcon, is the only current team member to have been a part of the two most successful teams in school history ... Freeman was a freshman on the 2000 squad that posted 10 wins and advanced all the way to the championship match of the MAC Tournament ... and, of course, she was a junior on last fall's team, when the Brown and Orange went 12-8-2, finished fourth in the MAC and advanced to the tourney semifinals ... Richards, after playing in just two matches in 2001, her first season at BG, played in every match last fall, making seven starts ... she had a goal and two assists.
SHE CAN CATCH, ALL RIGHT
There is a third senior on the Falcon squad ... senior Jenifer Kernahan, who has earned three letters to date for the BGSU softball team, has joined the women's soccer program ... Kernahan was a goalkeeper at Perrysburg High School, where she was a teammate of Falcon goalkeeping teammate Allie Failor ... Kernahan played in all 53 games for the softball Falcons last spring, helping the team to the MAC Tournament for the fifth time in the last six years ... she hit .300 and finished fifth in the league in runs batted in ... more importantly, in terms of skills that might transfer to the soccer pitch, Kernahan, a softball catcher, had a fielding percentage of .980 last spring ... Kernahan and Failor are part of a goalkeeper corps that also includes redshirt sophomore Ali Shingler and freshman Samantha Martinez.
ALOTTA RETURNEES
As mentioned, the Falcons return a total of 16 letterwinners, including 10 starters, from last year's squad ... the only other time BG welcomed back 10 starters was in 2000 ... that fall, the Brown and Orange advanced all the way to the championship match of the MAC Tournament before losing in overtime.
RECORD-SETTING SEASON
The 2002 Falcons set a school record for wins, with a total of 12 ... the 2000 team (10-10-1) had held the old record ... BGSU, picked to finish ninth in the MAC's preseason coaches poll, finished fourth in the league standings ... BGSU's 12-8-2 mark was the first winning record in program history.
MAC WINS
In addition to the record for overall wins, BGSU also set new marks for MAC wins (seven) and points (22), shattering the old records (5-5-1, 16 pts. in 2000) ... for the first time in school history, the Falcons finished with a winning record in MAC matches ... the 2001 BGSU squad had gone 2-9-1 in conference play.
HOME WINS
The 2002 Falcons also set a record for home wins, as the MAC Tournament victory over Buffalo (Nov. 6) was the fifth of the season at Cochrane Field ... four of the five previous BG teams had won four matches at home ... last year's edition of the Brown and Orange went 5-5-0 in conference contests.
MEISTER MAC FRESHMAN OF THE YEAR
Samantha Meister was named the MAC's Freshman of the Year in 2002 ... she became the second Falcon in the history of the program, and the second in a row, to be named the league's top frosh ... Kristy Coppes won the award in 2001 ... Meister, who was sidelined for seven matches with a broken nose, had a total of 17 points in only 15 matches last year, with six goals and five assists ... she scored 10 points in just eight MAC matches ... Meister set a school record by scoring a goal in five consecutive contests.
COPPES TIES SEASONAL GOALS RECORD, AGAIN
For the second consecutive year, Kristy Coppes tied the BGSU record for goals in a season, with 12 ... Tracy Gleixner originally set the mark in 1998, while Coppes has matched in in each of the first two seasons ... Coppes enters her junior year as the school's career leader in goals, with 24 ... she became just the second player to reach the 50-point plateau for her career, and enters 2003 with 52 points, just 13 away from Jill Conover's school record.
TRUNDLE'S SCHOOL-RECORD STREAKS
While Samantha Meister was honored by the MAC's coaches as the league's freshman of the year, she was far from the only stellar first-year Falcon in 2002 ... Julie Trundle had a total of 18 points on the season, good for second on the team ... she led the Falcons with eight assists on the year, and set a school record by recording at least one assist in five consecutive matches ... Trundle also set a BGSU record for consecutive matches with a point (seven) ... during that seven-match span, she had a total of 13 points ... Trundle ended her first season with 13 points in MAC contests, just one behind team leader Kristy Coppes.
THEY START YOUNG
All 10 freshman field players on the 2002 BGSU roster started at least one match last season ... in fact, of the 21 players who saw action for the Falcons last year, a total of 19 made at least one start ... eight different frosh scored at least one point on the season ... the Falcons' starting lineup featured at least three freshmen in each of last year's 22 matches, and at least four frosh in each of the final 21 contests ... head coach Andy Richards stared five or more freshmen on 15 occasions ... the frosh combined for 18 of BGSU's 38 goals and 30 of the team's 43 assists.
GETTING IT DONE IN THE CLASSROOM, TOO
The following BGSU women's soccer team members -- 14 of the 19 returning student-athletes (74%) -- currently hold a cumulative grade-point average of 3.00 or greater:
* Jenny Berlovan * Kylene Newell
* Molly Bremen * Katie Piening
* Keeley Dayton % * Nikki Pucillo
* Leah Eggleton * Carrie Richards
* Allie Failor * Beth Rieman
* Kasey Freeman * Ali Shingler %
* Samantha Meister * Julie Trundle
% denotes perfect 4.00 cumulative GPA
Additionally, all four of last year's seniors had a cumulative GPA of 3.17 or higher. The team's cumulative GPA at the end of the 2002-03 academic year was a whopping 3.33. A total of 17 returnees -- 89% - entered the summer with a cumulative GPA of at least 2.85.
SUCCESS IN THE TOURNAMENT
The Falcons have reached the MAC Tournament three times in the team's first six seasons, and BGSU has won the opening match on all three occasions ... the 2000 team reached the championship, while the 1998 and 2002 teams both made it to the semifinal round ... BGSU has the third-best MAC Tournament record of all league teams, with a 4-3-0 mark (.571), trailing only Miami (11-0-1) and Northern Illinois (5-1-0) ... only MU and Ohio (four times each) have reached the semifinal round more often than the Falcons.
