Bowling Green State University Athletics
Sixth-Seeded Falcons Head to Ann Arbor; Open vs. Oregon State Thursday
May 18, 2004 | Softball
May 18, 2004
Notes & Statistics (16 pages) in PDF Format
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Keep up-to-date on all the happenings in Ann Arbor with theNCAA Region No. 6 Championship link on BGSUFalcons.com.
BOWLING GREEN, Ohio - The Bowling Green State University softball team, after winning the Mid-American Conference Tournament for the first time in school history, heads to Ann Arbor, Mich., to participate in NCAA Region No. 6 ... the Falcons of sixth-year head coach Leigh Ross-Shaw will begin play in the eight-team, double-elimination tournament Thursday morning (May 20) ... BGSU, seeded sixth, will take on third-seeded Oregon State University in the first game of the day, with the first pitch set for 10:00 a.m. ... all tourney games will be played at Alumni Field.
The winner of the BGSU-OSU game will face either Tennessee or Illinois at Chicago on Friday (May 21) at 12:30 p.m. ... the BGSU-OSU loser will return to the diamond Thursday evening, taking on the UT-UIC loser in the day's fifth game, scheduled to begin at 8:00 p.m. ... Michigan, seeded sixth nationally, is the top seed for the regional.
HOW THEY GOT HERE
BGSU has a record of 34-28 on the season ... the Falcons went 13-11 in MAC play to place third in the West Division and tie for fifth overall ... BGSU was seeded sixth for the six-team MAC Tournament, and the Falcons lost to Western Michigan, 3-0, to open tourney play ... but, the Falcons knocked off each of the top-four seeds, in order, advancing through the loser's bracket to win the tournament with five consecutive victories ... BG beat top-seeded Central Michigan (3-0), #2 Kent State (6-0) and #3 WMU (8-6) to advance to the championship bracket ... needing to defeat #4 Miami twice on Sunday (May 16), the Falcons did just that, topping the RedHawks by scores of 1-0 and 4-3 ... last season, the Brown and Orange went 26-26-1 overall and 15-9 in the conference ... BG finished fourth in the West Division and fifth overall last spring.
STORYLINES
BGSU IN THE NCAA TOURNEY
The Falcons are making the fourth NCAA Regional appearance in school history, and the first in over a decade ... BGSU has an overall record of 0-6 in regional play, having gone 0-2 in each of the first three appearances ... in 1982, BGSU dropped a pair of road games to Cal State Fullerton ... then, in 1988, the Falcons hosted the Midwest Regional, but lost one-run contests to Northern Illinois and Illinois State ... the Brown and Orange played in Ann Arbor in 1993, losing games to Southwestern Louisiana and host Michigan ... the complete list of BG's NCAA Regional games can be found in the pdf version of this release.
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 171-143-2 (.544) ... BGSU's final win of 2003, vs. Northern Illinois in last season's MAC Tournament, made Ross-Shaw the winningest coach in school history ... Ross-Shaw is also the school's leader in MAC victories and league winning percentage ... she has a league mark of 86-56 (.606) through the 2004 season ... 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 ... and, of course, she continues to set new school marks in both categories with each victory.
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.
FALCONS VS. THE FIELD
This season, the Falcons are a combined 0-2 vs. the other teams in the NCAA Region 6 Championship ... BGSU dropped a pair of games to Michigan at Alumni Field on March 25, by scores of 8-0 (five innings) and 9-5 ... over the years, BG has posted an aggregate record of 12-31 vs. the other seven teams in the regional ... the Falcons are 1-0 vs. UIC, 6-8 vs. Notre Dame, 0-1 vs. both DePaul and Oregon State and 5-21 against U-M ... BGSU has never faced Canisius or Tennessee in softball.
PICKING UP SOME HARDWARE
The Falcons picked up a number of awards last week ... on Wednesday evening (May 12), three sophomores and a freshman earned all-league honors, as Gina Rango was named to the All-MAC First Team, while Jeanine Baca, Lindsay Heimrich and Liz Vrabel all were chosen to the league's second squad ... Rango has earned all-league first-team honors in each of her first two seasons, while Vrabel has been a second-team pick both years ... the next day, Heimrich was named to the Academic All-District First Team ... then, on Sunday (May 16), BGSU picked up a coveted team award, the MAC Tournament championship trophy ... and, four Falcons -- Heimrich, Rango, Abby Habicht and Jody Johnson -- were named to the All-Tournament Team, with Johnson being honored as the tourney MVP.
NOTING THE FALCONS
The Falcons head to Ann Arbor with an overall record of 34-28, and the Brown and Orange went 13-11 in Mid-American Conference play to finish third in the West Division and earn the sixth seed for the league tourney ... as mentioned numerous times on the previous pages, BGSU won that tournament to earn the MAC's automatic NCAA berth ... BGSU finished the regular season with records of 12-5 in home games and 8-14 on the road ... the Falcons currently have a record of 14-9 in neutral-site contests ... in MAC play, BG went 9-5 in home games and 4-6 on the road ... as a team, the Falcons are batting .254 to the opponents' .204 ... sophomore 3B Gina Rango leads the team with a .375 batting average ... Rango also paces the Brown and Orange in hits (72), doubles (17), homers (nine), runs batted in (42), slugging pct. (.615), on-base pct. (.434) and total bases (118) ... Rango is the lone Falcon to have started all 62 games to date, while junior RF/DP Kristen Anderson, freshman CF Jeanine Baca and sophomore 1B/P Lindsay Heimrich each have made 61 starts and sophomore C Abby Habicht 54 ... Baca is second on the team with a .310 batting average, while Heimrich is hitting .295 ... Baca leads the team with 36 runs scored, three ahead of Rango's total ... Baca has struck out just seven times in 200 at-bats this season ... she paces the Falcons in at-bats and is second with 62 hits ... Baca, Anderson and Heimrich have four homers apiece, and Anderson and Heimrich are tied for second on the team with 29 RBI ... Heimrich has 31 runs and 57 hits (including 13 doubles) on the year ... in the circle, Falcon pitchers have a combined ERA of 1.55, lowest in the MAC ... sophomore Liz Vrabel has a 15-15 record and a 1.42 ERA, while Heimrich has a 5-4 record and a 1.61 ERA ... Vrabel, who has 21 complete games in 27 starts, has struck out 166 batters and allowed opponents to hit just .208 against her ... Heimrich also has an opponent batting average of .208... senior Jody Johnson, the MAC Tournament MVP, is 14-9 with a 1.70 ERA and an opponent BA of only .197 ... like Vrabel, Johnson has 27 starts and 21 complete games.
A LOOK AT OREGON STATE
Oregon State, BGSU's first NCAA Region 6 Championship opponent, has an overall record of 40-26 ... the Beavers finished with a 4-17 Pacific 10 record ... OSU was ranked 20th in the latest NFCA poll, dated May 12 ... the Beavers of 10th-year head coach Kirk Walker have lost the last five games, all to teams ranked on the nation's top-10 ... the team is hitting .262, led by sophomore Vanessa Impala's .349 average ... classmate Lisa Allen has 11 homeruns, as the Beavers have hit 42 as a team ... senior pitcher Monica Hoffman has started 37 games, and is 19-16 with an ERA of 1.59 ... Oregon State is making the school's sixth-straight NCAA regional appearance ... the school's athletic web site is www.osubeavers.com.
THE SERIES
The Falcons and Oregon State have met just once on the diamond ... the Beavers captured a 3-1 victory at the Poly Invitational in Fullerton, Calif., on March 22, 1990.
STRONG FIELD
Four of the eight teams at the NCAA Region 6 Championship are ranked in the latest NFCA poll ... in addition to Oregon State's number-20 listing, Michigan is ranked sixth, while Tennessee is 11th and Notre Dame 24th.
BGSU IN THE MAC TOURNEY
Last weekend, the Falcons appeared in the MAC Tournament for the second consecutive season, the sixth time in the last seven years, and for the ninth time in school history ... this year marked the 14th MAC Tournament ... a league tourney was held each year from 1982-86 before a hiatus of nearly a decade (the tournament resumed in 1996, but that year's tourney was suspended in the third game due to inclement weather) ... Bowling Green has compiled an all-time MAC tourney mark of 14-17, having gone 1-2 on six of the first eight occasions the Falcons had qualified ... BGSU was 1-2 in the first four trips, 0-2 in 1999, and 3-2 in 2000 ... BG posted a 1-2 mark at the 2001 tourney, and again won one of three games last year ... the ninth time was the charm, however, as BG went 5-1 to win the tourney ... prior to this season, the runner-up finish in 2000 was the Falcons' best placing ever in the MAC Tournament ... the Falcons participated in the league tourney in 1982, 1985 and 1986, prior to the four-year run from 1998-2001 ... in three of the team's first four trips, BG won the first game before losing the next two ... a complete game-by-game listing, with opponent, result and score, can be found in the pdf.
HEIMRICH HAS A WEEK
Last week was a pretty good week for sophomore Lindsay Heimrich ... the Waterville, Ohio, native was named to the All-MAC Second Team at the league tournament banquet Wednesday night (May 12) ... then, on Thursday, she was chosen to the Academic All-District First Team ... Heimrich, who entered the spring semester with a perfect 4.00 GPA, now will have her name placed on the national ballot ... on Saturday, she hit a sixth-inning grand slam to help her own cause, and picked up the win in the circle as the Falcons downed Western Michigan ... the next day, she was named to the MAC's All-Tournament Team after the Brown and Orange won the title.
FALCONS AMONG THE MAC TEAM LEADERS
The Falcons are ranked among the MAC's elite in both batting and pitching ... as a team, BGSU has an earned-run average of 1.55, the lowest in the MAC ... the Falcons' collective batting average of .254 ranks second in the league ... in league games only, the Brown and Orange finished third in both categories, with a batting average of .257 and an ERA of 1.48.
RANGO'S RAMPAGE THROUGH THE MAC
The Falcons' Gina Rango is well represented among the MAC's individual leaders ... in fact, the sophomore is ranked in nearly every offensive category ... Rango enters the regional tourney with a batting average of .375, ranking her second in the league ... Rango leads the conference in hits, doubles and total bases ... she is second in the MAC in RBI and slugging pct., tied for third in homeruns, fourth in on-base pct. and deadlocked for fourth in runs scored ... in league games only, Rango finished first or second in the league in no fewer than seven categories ... she was second in batting, while leading the league in total bases ... Rango was also second in on-base pct. and slugging pct., and tied for second in homers, RBI and runs.
OTHER FALCONS AMONG THE MAC LEADERS
Rango is not the only Falcon ranked on the MAC lists ... sophomore Lindsay Heimrich is tied for third in doubles ... she is sixth in the league in runs scored and is deadlocked for sixth in hits ... freshman Jeanine Baca is third in the league in both runs and hits, leading the league's frosh in both categories ... Baca is 16th in the MAC in batting ... senior Jenifer Kernahan is tied for fourth in the league in walks, while Heimrich and junior Kristen Anderson are tied for 10th in the MAC in RBI ... in the circle, sophomore Liz Vrabel is fourth in the league in ERA, while senior Jody Johnson is tied for eighth ... Vrabel is third in innings pitched, fourth in wins, fifth in strikeouts and opponent batting avg., tied for fifth in games started and complete games, sixth in appearances and tied for sixth in shutouts ... Johnson is fourth in opponent BA, fifth in wins and shutouts, tied (with Vrabel) for fifth in starts and complete games, deadlocked for seventh in innings, eighth in strikeouts and tied for 10th in appearances.
IN MAC GAMES...
In league games only, sophomore Lindsay Heimrich finished 10th in the MAC in batting, while freshman Jeanine Baca was 11th ... Baca was third in hits, with Heimrich placing sixth ... the two players tied for fifth in the league in runs scored ... senior Jenifer Kernahan was tied for fourth in RBI and tied for sixth in walks ... sophomore pitcher Liz Vrabel finished ninth in ERA, with senior Jody Johnson 12th ... Vrabel tied for second in games started, tied for third in both wins and shutouts, and was fourth in opponent batting avg., fifth in innings and complete games, tied for fifth in appearances and sixth in strikeouts ... Johnson finished third in opponent BA, tied for seventh in shutouts and deadlocked for eighth in complete games ... she was 10th in strikeouts.
DIALING LONG DISTANCE
Entering the NCAA Regional, the Falcons have hit a total of 25 homers this season, a new school record ... the old mark of 21 was set by Leigh Ross-Shaw's 2001 team ... in fact, there has been a noticeable increase in the Falcons' power numbers since Ross-Shaw assumed the head-coaching helm ... in the first 20 years (1979-98) of BGSU varsity softball, no Falcon team had a double-digit homer total ... the school single-season record was eight when Ross-Shaw assumed the job ... BGSU has amassed double-digit homer totals in each of Ross-Shaw's six seasons, with at least 19 round-trippers in five of those six years ... the first 20 Falcon teams combined for a total of 80 homers, an average of 4.00 per year ... in Ross-Shaw's tenure, BG hitters have hit a total of 115 homers, an average of 19.17 per season.
TWO FROM THE MAC
For the first time in history, the Mid-American Conference has had two teams invited to the NCAA Softball Championship ... the Falcons, obviously, earned the league's automatic bid by winning the conference tournament ... regular-season champion Central Michigan was awarded an at-large bid, and heads to Los Angeles, Calif., to compete in the Region No. 2 Championship, hosted by UCLA.
SOMETHING ABOUT THE SIXTH
In 56 regular-season games, the Falcons scored a total of nine runs in the sixth inning ... in just six games at the MAC Tournament, BGSU matched that total, scoring nine runs in the sixth frame ... that total includes the Falcons' biggest inning this season, a seven-run sixth frame vs. Western Michigan.
RANGO'S RECORD COLLECTION
Sophomore Gina Rango certainly has made her mark on the BGSU record books ... Rango already has set two school single-season records and tied another in 2004 ... Rango had three runs batted in at the MAC Tournament, increasing her total to 42 this year ... she broke the record of 40, set by Lynsey Ebel in 2001 ... Rango had broken Ebel's homer record several weeks prior, and currently has nine round-trippers this year ... in fact, Rango already owns a share of the BGSU career HR mark, as she and Ebel are tied at the top with 14 ... she has hit 17 doubles this year, tying that school mark ... and, Rango currently ranks second on no fewer than three other BGSU single-season lists ... she trails only BGSU Hall-of-Famer Amy Lienhardt on each list ... this season, Rango has totals of 72 hits, 118 total bases and a .615 slugging pct. ... in her incredible 1988 campaign, Lienhardt had 83 hits, 126 TB and a .667 slugging pct.
FALCONS PICKED THIRD
Bowling Green was picked to finish third in the West Division in the 2004 preseason coaches' poll ... the poll was a result of voting by the league's 13 head coaches ... and, as it turned out, the coaches were correct in their assessment of the Falcons ... the coaches correctly forecasted the West Division, as Central Michigan was picked first and Western Michigan second (only the top-three teams in each division are announced by the MAC) ... in the East, however, Marshall was picked to win both the division and the MAC Tournament ... the Herd did not qualify for the league tourney ... Kent State, the East Division winner, was picked third ... Miami was picked second, and indeed finished second in the East.
ONCE YOU HIT 30, IT'S ALL DOWNHILL...
The 2004 edition of the Falcons marks the sixth team in school history to win at least 30 games, and Leigh Ross-Shaw is the first BGSU coach with three 30-win seasons ... BG's total of 34 wins is tied for fourth in school history ... the 1992 team, coached by Jacquie Joseph, won a school-record 37 games, while both the 1988 team and Ross-Shaw's 2001 squad won 35 contests ... Joseph's 1993 team, the last BG team to advance to NCAA play, also won 34 games.
