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Bowling Green State University Athletics
Falcons Head To Texas For Bash By The Bay
March 04, 2004 | Softball
March 4, 2004
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BOWLING GREEN, Ohio - The Bowling Green State University softball team heads to Corpus Christi, Texas, to take part in this weekend's Bash by the Bay ... the Falcons of sixth-year head coach Leigh Ross-Shaw will become very familiar with the other teams in the tourney ... BGSU will play Stephen F. Austin State University three times, and the Falcons will face host Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi twice during the two-day tourney, which will be held at Islander Field ... the complete schedule follows:
BASH BY THE BAY Games played at Islander Field Saturday, March 6: Stephen F. Austin at TAMU-Corpus Christi, 9:00 a.m. Bowling Green at TAMU-Corpus Christi, 11:00 a.m. Bowling Green vs. Stephen F. Austin, 1:00 p.m. Stephen F. Austin at TAMU-Corpus Christi, 3:00 p.m. Sunday, March 7: Bowling Green vs. Stephen F. Austin, 9:00 a.m. Bowling Green at TAMU-Corpus Christi, 11:00 a.m. Stephen F. Austin at TAMU-Corpus Christi, 1:00 p.m. Bowling Green vs. Stephen F. Austin, 3:00 p.m.
BGSU is 3-2 on the young season, after opening 2004 at the Comfort Inn Mercer Classic in Macon, Ga., last weekend (Feb. 27-29) ... the Falcons are coming off a 2003 season that saw the team go 26-26-1 overall and 15-9 in Mid-American Conference play ... BG finished fourth in the West Division and fifth overall, advancing to the MAC Tournament for the fifth time in six seasons ... Ross-Shaw returns nine letterwinners, including seven starters, from that squad.
HEAD COACH Leigh Ross-Shaw
Leigh Ross-Shaw is in her sixth season as a collegiate head coach, all with the Falcons, and has an overall record of 140-117-2 (.544) ... BGSU's final win in 2003, vs. Northern Illinois in the MAC Tournament, made Ross-Shaw the winningest coach in school history ... Ross-Shaw, the 2001 MAC Coach of the Year, has a league mark of 73-45 (.619), ranking her second in league victories ... she is just five MAC wins shy of the school record, and is the school leader in MAC winning percentage ... in all games, Ross-Shaw currently ranks second in winning pct., trailing only Sandy Haines (.557; 57-45-3 from 1981-83).
Ross-Shaw, the 2001 MAC Coach of the Year, guided the Brown and Orange to a MAC East Division title that spring after a co-championship in 2000 ... she was the fastest coach in BG annals to get to 100 overall wins as well as 50 MAC victories ... Ross-Shaw's total of 73 MAC wins places her second behind Jacquie Joseph (78-71 from 1989-93).
Ross-Shaw assumed the top job after two years as BG's assistant coach ... the Ottawa Lake, Mich., native came to the Falcon program in August of 1996 after serving as a high-school head coach, at Notre Dame Academy in Toledo, for four seasons ... Ross-Shaw is the only coach in school history to string together three consecutive winning seasons in MAC play ... the Falcons, who also had a winning league ledger in Ross-Shaw's last year as an assistant (1998), posted four-straight winning MAC marks from 1998-2001.
Ross-Shaw, a 1992 graduate of the University of Toledo, still holds numerous UT and MAC records, and remains the all-time league leader in batting average (.398), at-bats and hits ... she hit a MAC-record .447 as a senior en route to All-America Second-Team honors ... in February of 2001, she was inducted into the UT Athletics Hall of Fame.
ASSISTANT COACHES
Kyle Jamieson is in his first season as a member of Ross-Shaw's staff, serving as an instructor/softball assistant ... a native of Stittsville, Ontario, Jamieson has an extensive playing and coaching background, including a coaching stint with the Danish Men's National Team ... he also has MAC ties, having spent the 2000 season on the staff at Toledo ... Steve Babinski is in his second campaign on Ross-Shaw's staff ... Babinski, a graduate of Grace (Ind.) College, was a standout baseball player there ... he spent several years coaching at the Bowling Green Christian Academy ... Crystal Wilson is in her first season on the coaching staff, after completing a stellar four-year playing career in the Brown and Orange last spring ... originally a walk-on, the Toledo Whitmer product wound up as the Falcons' starting leftfielder as a junior and senior ... she hit grand slams in back-to-back home games last April.
THE OPPONENTS
Texas A&M-Corpus Christi will be hosting a tournament for the second consecutive weekend, and will take a 9-13 record into the Bash by the Bay ... the Islanders went a combined 2-3 vs. Minnesota and Prairie View A&M last weekend, with all three losses coming by a single run ... TAMU-CC is hitting .193 as a team, with no Islander batting higher than .255 ... the team is allowing opponents to hit just .200, however ... junior pitcher Sarah Pauly has a 6-6 record and a 1.55 earned run average ... the Islanders are coming off a 31-24 season ... TAMU-CC won the Big South Conference Tournament and advanced to NCAA Regional play ... head coach Missy Phillips-Dickerson has a record of 40-37 in her second year ... the school's athletics web site is www.goislanders.com.
Stephen F. Austin has a 5-10 record, and the Ladyjacks are scheduled to play a Friday (March 5) doubleheader at Texas before venturing to Corpus Christi ... SFA, 0-3 in the Southland Conference to date, saw a midweek league series vs. UL-Monroe postponed due to inclement weather ... the Ladyjacks dropped a three-game league series to Sam Houston State last weekend ... sophomore Carrie Woydziak is batting .455, and is one of three players hitting over .400 to date ... a year ago, the team went 27-31 overall and 11-16 in conference play ... third-year head coach Jennifer Poulson has a 41-92 record ... the school's athletics web site is www.sfajacks.com.
THE SERIES
BGSU has never met Stephen F. Austin or TAMU-Corpus Christi on the softball diamond.
LAST WEEK
The Falcons began the 2004 season by winning three of five games at the Comfort Inn Mercer Classic last weekend ... on Friday (Feb. 27), BGSU picked up a pair of 3-2 wins, over Wichita State and Oakland ... the Falcons struggled on Saturday (Feb. 28), losing a 3-1 decision to Marist and a 3-0 game to host Mercer ... but, the Brown and Orange bounced back with a 7-4 win over Morehead State Sunday (Feb. 29).
ANDERSON OFF TO GOOD START
A year ago, Kristen Anderson had a total of two hits in 15 at-bats ... this season, the junior already has a total of four hits, including three of the extra-base variety ... last weekend, Anderson hit the first two homeruns of her BGSU career ... Anderson, primarily a pitcher in 2003, doubled in Friday's season opener vs. Wichita State, then hit her first collegiate homer vs. Oakland later that day ... on Sunday, she hit a three-run shot as part of a six-run second inning against Morehead State ... Anderson had one RBI last year before driving in five runs at the Mercer tourney.
VRABEL FANS 11
Sophomore pitcher Liz Vrabel had some tough luck in the Falcons' 3-0 loss to Mercer ... Vrabel pitched a complete-game three-hitter, striking out a career-high 11 batters, but came away with the loss ... that was her lone loss last weekend, though ... Vrabel went 2-1 with an earned-run average of just 0.70 at the Mercer tourney ... she opened the season with a complete-game win over Wichita State, then pitched a scoreless inning of relief with a pair of strikeouts vs. Marist ... she ended the weekend with five innings of three-hit shutout relief vs. Morehead State ... Vrabel struck out 19 batters in 20 innings on the weekend, and allowed opponents to hit just .164 against her.
