Bowling Green State University Athletics
Falcons Continue Season-Long Homestand, Face CMU & UC This Weekend
September 10, 2003 | Women's Soccer
Sept. 10, 2003
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BOWLING GREEN, Ohio - The Bowling Green State University women's soccer team, in the midst of the longest homestand of the 2003 season, will play a pair of matches at Cochrane Field this weekend ... the Falcons of head coach Andy Richards (0-4-0, 0-1 Mid-American Conference) will face Central Michigan University in a Friday (Sept. 12) match, with kickoff scheduled for 4:00 p.m.
Then, the Brown and Orange will step outside of MAC play for a Sunday (Sept. 14) home match vs. the University of Cincinnati ... that match will begin at 1:00 p.m.
This weekend's two matches conclude the four-contest homestand for the Falcons ... BGSU is in the midst of a seven-match stretch which sees the team play six times at Cochrane Field.
HEAD COACH ANDY RICHARDS
Andy Richards is in his fourth season as a collegiate head coach, all with the Falcons, and has an overall record of 29-32-5 ... 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 MAC, 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 is in her fourth season with the Falcon program as well ... Orr was named the BGSU assistant coach in late August of 2000 ... Darin Karbler is in his second season as a volunteer assistant coach.
LAST TIME OUT
The Falcons began the home portion of the 2003 season with a pair of setbacks last weekend ... in each match, the opponent scored what would prove to be the winning goal midway through the second half ... on Friday (Sept. 5), BGSU battled back from a 2-0 deficit to tie the match, only to see Eastern Illinois go on to a 4-2 win ... junior Katie Piening and senior Carrie Richards scored for the Falcons ... Sunday (Sept. 7), the Brown and Orange dropped a 1-0 decision to Eastern Michigan in the first match of the MAC season ... redshirt sophomore Ali Shingler made eight saves, the most of her young career.
ABOUT THE FALCONS
BGSU returned 16 letterwinners, including a whopping 10 starters, from last year's team ... junior Kristy Coppes, the team's leading scorer in each of her first two seasons at BGSU, again leads the Brown and Orange with three points to date ... Coppes, senior Carrie Richards and junior Katie Piening each have one goal for the Falcons this year to date ... Ali Shingler has seen the bulk of the time in goal, and has a goals-against average of 3.60 ... head coach Andy Richards has seven newcomers on the 26-player roster ... more information can be found on the BGSU athletics web site, www.bgsufalcons.com.
THE OPPONENTS
Central Michigan will bring a 1-1-1 overall record to Cochrane Field, and Friday's match vs. the Falcons will be the Chippewas' MAC opener ... last weekend, CMU went to Cincinnati and came away with a 2-1 overtime win ... the team's other two matches, a 1-0 loss to UC-Riverside and a 1-1 tie vs. Idaho, came at a season-opening tournament in Arizona ... sophomore Stacy Downing leads the team with three points ... Downing and freshmen Alison Heydorn and Rosa Maria Rago each have one goal ... senior GK Kari Alexander has started all three matches, and is 1-1 with a goals-against average of 0.92, while freshman Anne Decker has played in two contests and has a GAA of 0.82 ... the Chippewas return 10 letterwinners, including seven starters, from last year's team that went 5-9-5 overall and 4-6-3 in MAC play ... head coach Mark Salisbury has a record of 48-45-9 in his sixth season at CMU ... he is 106-90-17 in his 12th season as a collegiate head coach ... the school's athletics web site is www.cmuchippewas.com.
Cincinnati enters the week with a 2-1-1 record, and the Bearcats will host Ohio State Friday night (Sept. 12) before heading to BGSU two days later ... UC has played three MAC teams in the season's first four matches, with all three contests going to overtime ... last weekend, the 'Cats suffered the home loss to CMU, then battled Miami to a 2-2 tie in Oxford Sunday (Sept. 7) ... UC had opened the season with a 2-1, OT win over Toledo, and the Bearcats beat Xavier, 3-1, in the team's other match this year ... senior Tasha Wagner leads the team in nearly every offensive category, including goals (3), assists (2) and points (8) ... she scored the winning goal in both UC victories ... sophomore Sherry Slye has been the most time in the net for UC, and has a 1.15 GAA ... junior Tracy Hale has a GAA of 1.43 to date ... last year, UC went 17-4-3 overall and 6-1-3 in Conference USA ... the Bearcats won the league tournament and advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament ... head coach Meridy Glenn returns 16 letterwinners, including seven starters, from that team ... Glenn has a record of 232-128-28 in her 21st season, all with the Bearcats ... the school's athletics web site is www.ucbearcats.com.
THE SERIES
The Falcons hold a 3-2-0 lead over Central Michigan in the all-time series between the teams ... the Chippewas, however, hold a 2-1 edge in matches played at Cochrane Field ... last year, BGSU got second-half goals from Kristy Coppes and Samantha Meister for a 2-0 win in Mount Pleasant (Oct. 11, 2002) ... Coppes scored BG's lone goal in CMU's 4-1 win two years ago, the teams' most recent meeting in BG (Oct. 14, 2001).
The Falcons trail Cincinnati, 1-0-0, in that series, with the lone meeting coming last Oct. 8 ... host UC posted a 2-0 win.
FALCON FIRSTS
Several Falcons posted career firsts in Friday's (Sept. 5) Eastern Illinois match ... sophomore Megan Rapp's assist on the Falcons' second goal of that match marked the first point of her collegiate career ... redshirt freshman goalkeeper Allie Failor made the first match appearance of her BG career that day ... while she did not face a shot on goal during her 10:25 of work, Failor went high to grab an EIU cross and thwart a Panther scoring attempt.
COPPES ON CAREER CHARTS
Junior Kristy Coppes assisted on the Falcons' first goal in the EIU match ... that upped her career total to 55 points ... Coppes now trails school record-holder Jill Conover (1999-2002) by 10 points on the BGSU career list ... the assist was the fifth of Coppes' career, to go along with a school-record 25 career goals.
WALKING WOUNDED
Sophomore Julie Trundle was injured early in the EIU match, and did not play in Sunday's (Sept. 7) Eastern Michigan contest ... prior to the EMU match, Trundle had started each of the first 25 matches of her BGSU tenure ... in that EMU match, though, classmate Leah Eggleton saw her first action of the year after missing the first three contests due to injury.
FAMILIAR FOES FIND ROAD SUCCESS
After Sunday's match, BGSU has now faced Eastern Michigan nine times, more than any other opponent ... EMU now holds a 5-3-1 lead in the all-time series ... the visiting team has now won six of the last seven matches, with the seventh match during that time ending in a tie.
FIRST-TIME STARTERS
After using the same lineup for the first three matches of the season, the Falcons switched things up a bit for the EMU contest Sunday ... four BGSU players -- junior Kristy Coppes, sophomores Megan Rapp and Ashley Wentzel and freshman Lindsay Carter -- each earned their first respective starts of the season ... Carter's start, of course, was the first of her collegiate career.
SHINGLER HAS SOLID START
Redshirt sophomore Ali Shingler has started each of the season's first four matches in goal, and has played 349:35 of a possible 360 minutes ... she has made a total of 26 saves to date, including a career-high eight in the Eastern Michigan match ... Shingler played a total of 87:27 over four matches as a freshman in 2001, and did not see match action last fall ... her longest stint prior to the 2003 season was 45 minutes (vs. Youngstown State in 2001), and she had made three career saves entering this season's opener vs. Arizona State.
THE CAPTAINS
The Falcons' two veteran seniors, Kasey Freeman and Carrie Richards, are the 2003 team co-captains ... 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 ... Freeman has now played in 56 career contests, the most of any current Falcon ... she now has 51 career starts, also the most of any player on the 2003 team, and she has started 45 consecutive matches ... 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 in 2002, and has a goal this year.
