Falcons Blank Zips, 3-0, For First MAC Win

Sunday, October 3

Akron, Ohio

1:00 PM

Bowling Green State University

AKRON

October 03, 2004 | Women's Soccer

Oct. 3, 2004

Final Stats

AKRON, Ohio - The Bowling Green State University women's soccer team achieved a number of firsts in Sunday's (Oct. 3) 3-0 win over the University of Akron. The Mid-American Conference match was held at Lee Jackson Field.

For the Falcons, now 3-8-1 overall on the season, the win was the first MAC victory of the season, the first shutout of the year, and it gave the Brown and Orange a winning streak for the first time in 2004. BGSU, after winning at Cleveland State Friday (Oct. 1), has won the last two matches. Akron dropped to 3-7-0 overall and 1-5-0 in the league.

Additionally, senior Kristy Coppes scored the first goal of the match, and became the first-ever Falcon to score 10 goals in each of her four seasons.

Freshman Gina Rossi, who assisted on the Coppes goal, scored her first collegiate goal late in the first half. Classmate Tiernay Tilford completed the scoring with a second-half marker.

Ali Shingler and the Falcon defense picked up the shutout, as BGSU dominated the play for most of the afternoon.

The Falcons nearly broke on top with just five minutes elapsed. Junior Molly Bremen's pass sent Coppes through all alone on UA goalkeeper Crystal Tabor. Tabor came charging out toward the top of the 18-yard box and was able to deflect Coppes' shot. The Falcon senior corralled the rebound and fired again, but a Zip defender blocked the ball on the goal line, and the Akron defense was able to clear the ball out of danger. That flurry marked the only good scoring chances by either team over the first 25 minutes of the contest.

The next Falcon flurry, however, culminated in the only goal BG would need. First, junior Ashley Wentzel beat several defenders to the end line and slid a right-side cross toward Coppes. Tabor made a nice diving stop of that cross, but the Falcons got the ball back seconds later. Bremen played the ball to Rossi on the left side, and the freshman's crossing ball found Coppes. Coppes fired low, and the ball glanced off the right post and in. BGSU had the lead at the 26:22 mark.

With just over five minutes before halftime, the Falcons doubled the lead, with Wentzel and Rossi playing integral parts.

Wentzel stole the ball from a Zip defender and found Rossi. Rossi worked one-on-one against another UA defender, made several fakes to get the UA player off balance, then unleashed a low shot past Tabor for her first collegiate score.

The Falcons controlled the ball for much of the second half, and closed the scoring with just under 10 minutes remaining. After the Zips played the ball out of bounds in their own end of the field, junior Britt Anderson's throw-in found classmate Leah Eggleton on the end line. Eggleton hustled along the line, forcing Tabor to commit, then slid the ball to a wide-open Tilford, who one-timed it into the open net.

The Falcons had 13 shot attempts to just two for the Zips, and BG had six shots on goal to Akron's one. Shingler was called upon to make just one save in the win. For UA, Tabor made two saves, while the Zips had one 'team save.'

The teams were whistled for a total of 41 fouls, with Akron receiving 22 fouls and all three of the yellow cards in the match.

BGSU returns home for a pair of matches next weekend, including a Friday (Oct. 8) contest vs. Miami University and a Sunday (Oct. 10) tilt against Ball State University.

NOTES

Senior Kristy Coppes, as mentioned, had her 10th goal of the season and now has 44 in her career, the school career record ... Coppes increased her BGSU-record point total to 93.

Coppes, who scored the match-winning goal in Friday's victory at CSU, again netted the match winner on Sunday ... she has all three of the Falcons' MWGs this year, and extended her own school career record to 11 ... Coppes is four ahead of second-place Jill Conover (1999-2002), who had seven match-winning goals in her Falcon tenure.

Coppes becomes the first BGSU player to score at least 10 goals in each of her four seasons ... in fact, only six times in school history has a player hit double digits in goals in a season ... the only Falcons other than Coppes to do so have been Tracy Gleixner (12 in 1998) and current teammate Samantha Meister (10 last year) ... Coppes tied Gleixner's school record with 12 goals as both a freshman and sophomore, and had 10 more goals last season.

After scoring a total of four goals during the entire month of September, the Falcons have scored eight times in two October matches ... BGSU is now 2-0 in the month of October after going winless in September.

The shutout win, as mentioned, was BGSU's first of the season ... for Ali Shingler, it marked her fifth career complete-match shutout ... she ranks second on that BGSU list.

For the 11th time in 12 matches in 2004, the Falcons had more corner kicks than the opponent ... BG has taken 85 corner kicks to the foes' 34 this season ... the Falcons had 100 corners during all of last season.

The Falcons got a pair of goals from freshmen, as both Gina Rossi and Tiernay Tilford found the back of the net at UA ... the last time BGSU got a pair of goals from frosh was on Nov. 1, 2002, when both Samantha Meister and Keeley Dayton scored in a 3-1 win over Wright State ... ironically, the Falcons' other goal in that match -- just as in Sunday's win -- was scored by Kristy Coppes, and was the match winner.

Junior Molly Bremen, after going her first two years at BG without scoring a point, has a total of seven points this season, incuding six in the last three matches ... she ranks third on the team in scoring.

Bremen and junior Leah Eggleton each have three-match point-scoring streaks ... Bremen's, of course, is a career high ... Eggleton's matches her career best, as she had at least one point in three-straight matches late last season, culminating in the Falcons' MAC Tournament win at Eastern Michigan ... this season, Eggleton missed the first four matches due to injury, then played sparingly over the next few matches.

The Falcons are now a perfect 4-0-0 vs. Akron in the all-time series between the teams, with a pair of wins at Lee Jackson Field ... the Falcons have bookended a pair of 3-0 victories around two 2-1 wins against the Zips.

QUOTING BGSU COACH Andy Richards
"It was a very satisfying performance today. We are delighted with the result, and we have learned, through our misfortunes this season, not to take the wins for granted. This was very hard earned, and was great for us not only to cap a winning weekend, but to get our first MAC win."

"There are a lot of plusses today. The MAC win, and the fact that we got a shutout, are both great. Kristy's goal putting her into double figures for the fourth season running ... it was exciting to see Gina Rossi get her first collegiate goal today, and to see Tiernay get her second goal of the year. A lot of good things happened today. We worked hard for it, and are beginning to reap the benefits of all of our hard work."

"It has been a very strange season for us, in that we have performed well, but haven't necessarily gotten the results. It is satisfying to see us start to get some wins, and we hope that today's win is the first of many (MAC wins). It won't be easy; we have a lot of hard work ahead of us if we want to qualify for the postseason tournament, and the only way we can do that is by getting wins."

"I was especially pleased with the mentality of the team, up 2-0 at halftime. It would have been easy for us to take our foot off the gas and maybe let Akron back into the game. But, we didn't do that; we kept working for that third goal and eventually got it."

"Again, we are pleased with this win, and this weekend. We did a lot of good things today, and we will look to keep it going."