Bowling Green State University Athletics
Falcons Head To Hawai'i To Open 2003 Season
August 25, 2003 | Women's Soccer
Aug. 25, 2003
Complete Release (6 pages) in PDF Format
Download Free Acrobat Reader
BOWLING GREEN, Ohio - The Bowling Green State University women's soccer team will begin the seventh season in program history with a pair of matches in Hawai'i this weekend ... the Falcons of head coach Andy Richards will participate in the OHANA Hotels and Resorts No Ka Oi Tournament, beginning with a Saturday (Aug. 30) contest vs. Arizona State University ... kickoff for that match is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. locally (midnight Eastern).
The following night (Aug. 31), the Falcons will face the host University of Hawai'i, with that contest set for a 5:00 p.m. (10:00 p.m. Eastern) kickoff ... both matches will be played at the Waipio Peninsula Soccer Stadium.
Upon the team's return to the mainland, the Falcons will prepare for the home opener, set for Friday, Sept. 5, vs. Eastern Illinois University ... that match begins a four-contest homestand for the Brown and Orange.
HEAD COACH Andy Richards
Andy Richards enters his fourth season as a collegiate head coach, all with the Falcons, and has an overall record of 29-28-5 ... he has led BGSU to the two finest seasons in school history to date ... last season, Richards performed one of the top coaching jobs in the Mid-American Conference, if not the Midwest, guiding the Brown and Orange to a 12-8-2 record and a fourth-place MAC finish ... Richards, who came to BG after five years as an assistant coach at Oregon State University, was hired in April of 2000.
Ashlee Orr embarks upon her fourth season with the Falcon program as well ... Orr was named the BGSU assistant coach in late August of 2000 ... Darin Karbler begins his second season as a volunteer assistant coach.
ABOUT THE FALCONS
BGSU returns 16 letterwinners, including a whopping 10 starters, from last year's team ... the list of returnees includes junior Kristy Coppes, the team's leading scorer in each of her first two seasons at BGSU, as well as sophomores Julie Trundle and Samantha Meister, who finished second and third, respectively, in scoring a year ago ... the Falcons return the entire corps of midfielders and defenders from last season ... Coppes is one of four returning forwards ... the coaching staff has four goalkeepers on the roster, vying to replace All-MAC First-Team pick Erika Flanders in the net ... Flanders, who set every BGSU goalkeeping record during her four years, is the lone starter not returning ... head coach Andy Richards has seven newcomers on the 26-player roster ... a complete 2003 season outlook can be found elsewhere on the BGSU athletics web site, www.bgsufalcons.com.
THE OPPONENTS
Arizona State returns all 11 starters from last year's team that went 12-7-2 overall and advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament ... head coach Ray Leone's club was ranked 11th in the nation in the Soccer Buzz preseason poll ... the Sun Devils were picked to finish third in the Pacific-10 Conference this year, after going 4-5-0 and tying for sixth in the league last fall ... ASU opens the 2003 season with a Friday match (Aug. 29) at Hawai'i, before meeting the Falcons the next night ... highlighting the returnees are Under-21 U.S. National Team members Amy LePeilbet and Manya Makoski, as well as last year's Pac-10 Freshman of the Year, Elizabeth Bogus ... Bogus led the team with 10 goals and 23 points last year, while Makoski had 21 points ... the team's freshman class was ranked ninth in the nation by Soccer America ... Leone enters the 2003 season with a two-year record of 22-15-3 at ASU ... he is 170-80-16 overall, entering his 14th year as a collegiate head coach ... the school's web address is www.thesundevils.com.
Hawai'i welcomes back eight starters from the 2002 team that went 10-8-2 overall and tied for second in the Western Athletic Conference with a 6-3-0 league mark ... the Rainbow Wahine will host ASU Friday before meeting the Falcons two nights later ... head coach Pinsoom Tenzing's team was picked to finish second in the WAC in the 2003 preseason poll ... additionally, sophomore Natasha Kai was named the league's preseason player of the year ... Kai set numerous school records in 2002, and became the first player in conference history to be named WAC Freshman of the Year and Player of the Year in the same season ... senior Arlene Devitt was named to the All-WAC Second Team a year ago ... Kai scored 16 goals and 37 points last fall, while Devitt's 28 points included 10 goals ... Tenzing has a head-coaching record of 67-89-11 in nine years, all with the Rainbow Wahine ... the school's athletics web site is uhathletics.hawaii.edu.
THE SERIES
BGSU will be meeting both Arizona State and Hawai'i in women's soccer for the first time in school history.
TOUGH CROWD
The Falcons' 2003 schedule is arguably the toughest in the history of the program ... BGSU plays six teams that made the NCAA Tournament last fall ... five of the Falcons' nine non-conference opponents qualified for the national tournament ... in MAC play, the Brown and Orange, which made the league tourney semifinals last year, will play each of the other three semifinalists -- Ball State, Miami and Ohio -- on the road ... the Falcons' 10 match home slate includes seven September contests at Cochrane Field ... BG begins October with a five-match road swing, and plays just three home contests out of 10 total matches that month.
FALCONS PICKED FOR FOURTH-PLACE MAC FINISH
The Falcons were picked to finish fourth in the MAC in the league preseason poll ... the poll, released August 15, is a result of voting by the league's 13 head coaches ... the Brown and Orange, picked to finish ninth in last year's preseason poll, placed fourth in the final 2002 standings with a 7-4-1 league ledger ... Ohio was picked to finish first in this year's race, followed by Ball State, Miami, BGSU, Eastern Michigan and Western Michigan ... due to a recent change in polling procedures, the MAC announces only the top six selections.
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.
KERNAHAN 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 goalkeeper 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, a redshirt freshman, 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 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 started 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 * Molly Bremen * Keeley Dayton % * Leah Eggleton * Allie Failor * Kasey Freeman * Samantha Meister * Kylene Newell * Katie Piening * Nikki Pucillo * Carrie Richards * Beth Rieman * Ali Shingler % * 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.
