Bowling Green State University Athletics
Falcons Hit Road To Face Ball State, Miami This Weekend
September 30, 2003 | Women's Soccer
Sept. 30, 2003
Complete Release (6 pages) in PDF Format
Download Free Acrobat Reader
BOWLING GREEN, Ohio - The Bowling Green State University women's soccer team, having played only one road match during the entire month of September, will begin October with five consecutive contests away from Cochrane Field ... the Falcons of head coach Andy Richards (3-6-1, 1-2-1 Mid-American Conference) will start that lengthy road swing by facing the defending MAC champions and runners-up this weekend ... the Brown and Orange will head to Muncie to meet Ball State University Friday (Oct. 3), with kickoff scheduled for 3:00 p.m. locally (4:00 p.m. Eastern) at the Ball State Soccer Field.
Then, the Falcons will head to Oxford for a Sunday (Oct. 5) match vs. the RedHawks ... that contest will begin at 1:00 p.m. at the Miami Soccer Field.
Next weekend, the Falcons will play at Western Michigan (Oct. 10) and Northern Illinois (Oct. 12), then BGSU will briefly step outside of the MAC to face Michigan State on Oct. 15 ... the Falcons' next home match is against Buffalo on Friday, Oct. 17.
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 32-34-6 ... 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(S) OUT
The Falcons lost one match to the opponent and one to the weather last weekend ... BGSU's scheduled Friday (Sept. 26) contest at Valparaiso was cancelled due to inclement weather, and will not be rescheduled ... then, Toledo got a goal with just under six minutes gone in overtime for a 1-0 win over the Falcons at Cochrane Field Sunday (Sept. 28) ... redshirt sophomore Ali Shingler made five saves in the match.
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 paces the team with four goals and nine points ... senior co-captain Carrie Richards and sophomore Samantha Meister each have two goals and five points ... junior Nikki Pucillo and sophs Leah Eggleton and Julie Trundle each have two assists to share the team lead ... Ali Shingler has seen the bulk of the time in goal, and has a goals-against average of 2.20 ... head coach Andy Richards has seven newcomers on the 26-player roster ... more information on the Falcons can be found elsewhere on the BGSU athletics web site, www.bgsufalcons.com.
THE OPPONENTS
Ball State will check into Friday's BGSU match with an overall record of 5-3-2 on the season ... the Cardinals, picked to win the 2003 MAC Tournament in the preseason coaches poll, are 3-1-1 in MAC play ... after a 3-0 start to the conference season, BSU suffered a loss and a tie, both in double overtime, last weekend ... the Cards fell to Central Michigan, 1-0, on Friday (Sept. 26), before battling Eastern Michigan to a 1-1 tie two days later ... junior Kate Nadalin and freshman Amy Holst have combined for seven of the team's 11 goals this year ... Nadalin, the school's career scoring leader, paces the 2003 squad with four goals and 10 points ... Holst has three goals and a team-high three assists for nine points ... senior Megan Swafford has seen time in all 10 matches in goal ... she has a 4-2-0 record and a MAC-leading goals-against average of 0.58 ... BSU returned 15 letterwinners, including seven starters, from last year's team that went 14-6-1 overall ... the Cards finished second in the MAC with a 9-3-0 slate ... head coach Ron Rainey has a record of 39-42-8 in his fifth season with the Cardinals ... he has an overall record of 59-55-12 in his seventh season as a collegiate head coach ... the school's athletics web site is www.ballstatesports.com.
Miami enters the week with a 3-5-1 overall record, and the RedHawks will take a 2-3-0 MAC mark into a Friday match vs. Toledo ... last weekend, MU dropped a pair of 2-1 matches on the road, to EMU Friday (in OT) and CMU Sunday ... junior Ashley Swinehart is tied for the MAC lead with seven goals, and leads the league in goals per match ... she has 15 points on the year ... freshman Kathleen Vistica has a team-high four assists and eight total points ... in net, freshman Megan Ortner has played the last four matches, and is 2-2 with a 1.50 GAA ... sophomore Leigh Terry started the first five contests, going 1-3-1 with a GAA of 1.72 ... both 'keepers have 19 saves to date ... last year, the RedHawks went 19-3-2 overall, winning the MAC with a league mark of 11-1-0 ... MU also won the MAC Tournament for the third consecutive year and advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament ... head coach Bobby Kramig welcomed back seven letterwinners, including five starters, from that team ... Kramig has a record of 79-47-6 in his seventh season as the RedHawks' women's coach ... Kramig, who coached the MU men's team for 16 years, has an overall women's head-coaching mark of 92-50-8 in his eighth season ... the school's athletics web site is www.muredhawks.com.
THE SERIES
The Falcons trail Ball State by a 2-1-1 margin in the all-time series between the teams ... last season (Sept. 22, 2002), the Cardinals posted a 2-1 win at Cochrane Field, with Kristy Coppes scoring the Falcons' lone goal ... BSU holds a 1-0-1 lead in matches played in Muncie, including a 3-0 victory in the teams' last meeting there (Nov. 1, 2001) ... the teams battled to a 2-2 tie in their first-ever meeting, at BSU in 1999 ... the Falcons' lone series win came by a 3-0 score at Cochrane in Oct. 8, 2000.
Miami holds an 8-0-0 series lead over the Falcons, including a pair of 3-0 victories last fall ... MU picked up a regular-season win at Cochrane on Sept. 20, 2002, then downed the Falcons in the MAC Tournament's semifinal round in Oxford on Nov. 8 ... the graduated Danielle Berkemeier scored five of the RedHawks' six goals against BG last year ... MU holds a 4-0 lead in series contests played in Oxford.
MOTHER NATURE WINS
The Falcons' non-league match at Valparaiso Friday (Sept. 26) was cancelled due to inclement weather, and will not be made up ... thunderstorms rolled into the Valparaiso area at approximately 3:45 p.m. locally (4:45 p.m. Eastern), toward the end of the Crusaders' men's soccer match vs. Michigan State ... that match was halted with 1:20 remaining in the second half, and was not resumed ... the inclement weather did not subside until it was too dark for the women's match to be contested at Eastgate Field, which does not have lights ... the teams attempted to move the match to a local high school, but could not get approval to play there ... then, the Falcons and Crusaders attempted to move the contest to Fairgrounds Park, but park officials could not get the park's lights turned on ... in the waning daylight, the teams held a penalty-kick contest, with the Falcons prevailing by a 17-14 margin.
SHUTOUT STREAKS SNAPPED
Toledo's overtime goal Sunday (Sept. 28) snapped what was by far the Falcons' longest shutout streak of the 2003 season ... prior to the match-winning score, BGSU goalkeepers had blanked opponents for a total of 212:38 ... redshirt sophomore Ali Shingler was in goal for 167:38 of that time, with senior Jenifer Kernahan working a scoreless second half in BG's 3-0 win over Wright State on Sept. 21 ... prior to Sunday, Shingler's longest scoreless streak had been 121:06, amassed from Sept. 12-17 of this year (the Central Michigan-Cincinnati-Detroit matches) ... Kernahan, the starting catcher on the BGSU softball team, has played a total of 57:37 of shutout soccer this fall, her first with Andy Richards' squad.
ANOTHER STREAK SNAPPED
The loss to Toledo snapped the Falcons' home winning streak at three matches, and also stopped BGSU's home unbeaten streak at four contests ... the school record for consecutive home wins is four, set at the start of the 1999 season (Aug. 27-Sept. 15, 1999) ... the four-match home unbeaten streak had tied the school record.
STRANGE THINGS HAPPEN WHEN RIVALS MEET
In the all-time series between the Falcons and the Rockets, the home team has won only one of the seven meetings ... in fact, the home squad has not won a match since the teams' initial meeting (at UT's Glass Bowl) in 1997 ... BGSU is 3-1-0 in road matches vs. UT, including a 3-0 mark at Scott Park, while the Rockets hold a 2-0-1 advantage in contests at Cochrane Field.
EVEN STEVEN
The all-time series between BGSU and UT is now tied at 3-3-1 ... each team has scored a total of 10 goals in the seven matches ... the teams have each won three one-goal matches, in addition to the tie.
WORKING OVERTIME AT COCHRANE FIELD (PLUS SOME OTHER OT TIDBITS)
All three meetings between BG and UT at Cochrane Field have required overtime ... Toledo won the first-ever meeting at BGSU, 2-1 in OT, on Oct. 30, 1999 ... that was the final Falcon match before the Andy Richards tenure began ... two years ago (Sept. 9, 2001), the teams battled through a pair of scoreless overtimes in a 2-2 deadlock ... on Sunday, of course, UT got an OT victory ... the Falcons now have an all-time mark of 7-9-10 in overtime matches, including a 3-6-3 record in OT at Cochrane ... BGSU is 3-4-8 in all regular-season overtime matches vs. MAC opposition ... Toledo is the only team to post two regular-season OT wins vs. the Falcons ... Sunday's opponent, Miami, also has downed the Brown and Orange twice in overtime, but one of the RedHawk wins came in the championship match of the 2000 MAC Tournament.
COPPES ON CAREER SCORING CHARTS
Junior Kristy Coppes scored a pair of goals in the Falcons' 3-0 win over Wright State (Sept. 21) ... Coppes now has 28 goals in her career, extending her own school record ... additionally, Coppes now has a career total of 61 points, good for second in BGSU history ... she trails school record-holder Jill Conover (65 points from 1999-2002) by just four points.
TRUNDLE, MEISTER ALSO ON CAREER LISTS
Sophomore Julie Trundle's assist in the Wright State contest was the 10th of her career ... Trundle now ranks fifth on the BGSU career assists list ... with 20 career points, she is 12th on that school list ... classmate Samantha Meister's assist in that match moved her career point total to 22 ... she now ranks ninth in school history on that list ... Meister, who missed seven matches last year due to injury, reached the 22-point mark after just 24 career contests.
SPREADING AROUND THE STARTS
Through the first half of the season, a total of 18 different Falcons have started at least one match ... only four Falcons -- senior co-captain Kasey Freeman, junior Beth Rieman, redshirt sophomore Ali Shingler and true soph Samantha Meister -- have started all 10 matches to date.
