Bowling Green State University Athletics
2005 Season Information
August 22, 2005 | Softball
Aug. 22, 2005
Complete Release, Stats and 2005 Student-Athlete Bios (22 pages) in PDF Format
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BOWLING GREEN, Ohio - The Bowling Green State University softball team, after earning a Mid-American Conference Tournament berth for the third-straight year and the seventh time in the last eight years, saw the 2005 season come to an end ... the Falcons of seventh-year head coach Leigh Ross-Shaw finished fourth in the eight-team tournament, bowing out of the tourney with a 2-2 record ... both of the Falcons' MAC Tournament losses came to eventual champion Miami University ... BGSU finished the season with an overall record of 29-30, and a MAC mark of 12-10 ... the Falcons were third in the MAC's West Division ... twice during the season, BG faced the team ranked number one in the nation at the time of the game, playing Arizona and eventual champion Michigan ... BGSU's 2005 wins included one over a ranked team (Northwestern, ranked #23/25 at the time), and one over a team receiving votes (Pacific).
HONORS APLENTY: RANGO NAMED AN ALL-AMERICAN
Junior Gina Rango completed one of the most decorated seasons in BGSU history when she was selected to the 2005 Easton All-America team ... Rango, a junior, was chosen to the third team ... a native of North Lima, Ohio, she is the first-ever Falcon named to the Easton All-America squad, and is the first softball All-American of any kind since 1988 ... Amy Lienhardt, the only other A-A selection in school history, earned second-team honors from the National Fastpitch Coaches Association that year ... a total of 45 players were named to the 2005 Easton All-America first, second and third teams from NCAA Division I, II and III schools, NAIA schools and junior colleges.
RANGO, VRABEL NAMED TO ALL-REGION TEAM
Juniors Gina Rango and Liz Vrabel were named to the NFCA's All-Great Lakes Region Team in 2005 ... Rango, a third baseman, was named to the first team for the third consecutive year, while Vrabel, a pitcher, was chosen to the second team ... Rango is the first player in school history to earn all-region honors on more than one occasion ... only five times has a Falcon player been named to the all-region first team, and Rango has done so three times ... Amy Lienhardt (1988) and Rachelle Highfill (1993) are BGSU's other first-team selections ... Vrabel's all-region honor was the first of her career ... the 2005 season marked just the second time in school history, and the first since 1993, that the Falcons had a pair of all-region selections ... Rango and Vrabel were two of only three MAC players to be named to the Great Lakes All-Region squad.
DUO EARN MAC PLAYER-, PITCHER-OF-THE-YEAR HONORS
Juniors Gina Rango and Liz Vrabel picked up two of the most prestigious softball honors bestowed by the MAC ... Rango was named the 2005 MAC Player of the Year, while Vrabel was honored as the MAC Pitcher of the Year ... the awards are the results of voting by the league's head coaches ... Rango became just the third Falcon to be named MAC Player of the Year in the 18-year history of the award (Amy Lienhardt in 1988, Nikki Rouhana in 2001) ... Vrabel is the first hurler in BG annals to win the MAC Pitcher-of-the-Year award, which was instituted in 2001 ... BGSU is the first team in MAC history to boast the league's player and pitcher of the year in the same season, not to mention the first to have a pair of underclass players earn the honors.
VRABEL MAKES MAC ALL-TOURNAMENT TEAM
Junior Liz Vrabel was BGSU's lone selection to the 2005 MAC All-Tournament team ... in the tourney, Vrabel showed why she was named the MAC Pitcher of the Year ... in four tournament appearances, she had an earned-run average of just 0.33, while allowing opponents to bat a collective .114 against her ... Vrabel had a 2-1 record at the tourney, surrendering only one earned run and eight hits in 21 1/3 innings ... she walked just two batters while striking out 30.
FOUR ALL-MAC SELECTIONS FOR THE FALCONS
The Falcons had four players selected to the All-MAC Team in 2005 ... not surprisingly, juniors Gina Rango and Liz Vrabel earned all-conference first-team honors ... sophomore Megan McPherson and freshman Allison Vallas each were named to the All-MAC Second Team ... if you don't know all there is to know about Vrabel and Rango by now, you haven't been reading very closely ... but, much more information about all four players can be found in the pdf version of these notes.
THREE FALCONS NAMED TO ACADEMIC ALL-MAC TEAM
Three BGSU student-athletes were named to the 2005 Academic All-MAC Team ... juniors Lindsay Heimrich and Liz Vrabel and sophomore Megan McPherson all were named to the team, which is the result of voting by the league's faculty athletic representatives ... BGSU's total of three student-athletes selected tied for the most in the league ... Heimrich, who also earned the honor in 2004, was one of just three repeat selections to this year's team ... a total of 19 student-athletes were named to the team.
RANGO'S RAMPAGE
Gina Rango, just a junior, has already placed her name at the top of several BGSU career records lists ... Rango ranks first in BGSU history in homeruns (16), runs batted in (100), batting average (.367) and slugging pct. (.551) ... she is second on the career total bases list, with 291, and also is second with 194 career hits ... Rango ranks fourth in doubles (37), fifth in runs scored (87) and seventh in games started (172) ... Rango is one walk and one stolen base away from entering the school's career top-10 in each of those categories.
VRABEL'S RECORD COLLECTION
Another Falcon junior, Liz Vrabel, has shattered both the BGSU single-season and career strikeout records ... she ended the 2005 campaign with 237 strikeouts, breaking the previous BG seasonal mark (180 by Garrett Gholston in 1999) by nearly 60 K's ... Vrabel, with one season left, has 575 career strikeouts ... the old BG record was 505 by Jennifer Wolf (1993-97) ... she is at or near the top of numerous BGSU career records lists ... her 7.10 strikeouts per seven innings places her more than two ahead of the second-place pitcher on that list (4.96) ... Vrabel - again, just a junior - ranks third in career wins (49 - seven shy of tying school record) and earned-run average (1.46), tied for third in complete games (60), fourth in innings pitched (567) and shutouts (18), fifth in games started (77) and deadlocked for fifth in appearances (105).
RANGO AND VRABEL IN THE MAC
Juniors Gina Rango and Liz Vrabel certainly made their presence felt around the MAC in '05... in MAC games only, Vrabel led the entire league in strikeouts (122), strikeouts per seven innings (9.35), complete games (13), opponent batting average (.167) and shutouts (4 - tied for league lead) ... she ranked third in ERA (1.15) and tied for third in wins (9) ... Rango was second in the league in on-base pct. (.465) and tied for second on walks ... she deadlocked for third in stolen bases and tied for fourth in RBI ... Rango was sixth in the league in batting ... in all games, Vrabel led the league in ERA (1.75) and strikeouts (237), while Rango finished third in batting average ... Rango led all MAC players in triples and was fourth in hits per game, fifth in hits and OBP, sixth in RBI, eighth in total bases and tied for eighth in steals ... Vrabel was ranked among the league's top 10 in nine of the 10 pitching categories (all except saves).
YOUTH WILL BE SERVED
The Falcons were one of the youngest teams in the country in 2005 ... according to an informal survey of Division I institutions that sponsor softball, BGSU was tied for the 27th-youngest squad in the country (of 268) ... 70.6 percent of the team (12 of the 17 student-athletes) were either freshmen or sophomores in 2005 ... just one of the Falcons' 17 players, Kristen Anderson, was a senior, tying the Falcons for 10th in the nation in that category.
ABOUT THE FALCONS
Bowling Green ended the 2005 season with an overall record of 29-30 ... the Falcons finished with a mark of 12-10 in MAC play, good for a third-place finish in the West Division ... individually, the Falcons were led by a pair of All-MAC First-Team selections, juniors Gina Rango and Liz Vrabel ... Rango, the MAC Player of the Year, hit a team-high .366, and also led the Falcons in hits (60), triples (five), total bases (82), slugging percentage (.500) and on-base pct. (.432) ... she finished second on the team in homeruns (two), runs batted in (31), walks (16) and stolen bases (15) ... sophomore Megan McPherson, a second-team all-league selection, hit .297 on the season, and led the Brown and Orange with 16 stolen bases ... freshman Allison Vallas, also an all-league second-team pick, and junior Lindsay Heimrich batted .284 and .250, respectively ... Vallas had three homers, 34 RBI and 19 walks to lead BG in all three categories ... soph Jeanine Baca hit .242 with team-high totals of 30 runs scored and 13 doubles ... in the circle, Vrabel had a 17-14 record, a 1.75 ERA and a school-record total of 237 strikeouts ... senior Kristen Anderson went 1-1 with an ERA of just 0.99 in 28 1/3 innings of work, while freshman Emily Gouge was 6-7 on the year, with two saves and a 2.11 ERA ... Heimrich finished the season with a 5-8 mark and a 2.72 ERA.
BGSU IN THE MAC RANKINGS
The Falcons led the league in several pitching categories in 2005, including ERA (1.97) and opponent batting average (.221) ... BG hurlers were second in the league in strikeouts (372), K's per seven innings (6.53) and complete games (36) and third in shutouts (11) ... Falcon batters were second in triples (13) and third in walks (128), but BG ranked seventh or lower in each of the other seven batting categories ... the Falcons' school-record fielding percentage of .966 was second-best in the conference.
In league games only, the BG pitchers had even more success ... the Falcons were first in the MAC in three categories - ERA (1.44), opponent BA (.184) and strikeouts per seven innings (7.78) ... the pitching staff tied for first in fewest walks allowed (30), and BG was second in strikeouts (162), shutouts (six) and fewest walks per seven innings (1.44) ... at the plate, BGSU was third in batting average in conference games, hitting .235 ... the Falcons tied for first in the loop in triples (four) and ranked second in OBP (.310) ... BG led the league in fielding pct. in MAC games, at .972.
HEAD COACH Leigh Ross-Shaw
Leigh Ross-Shaw, the winningest coach in school history, has concluded her seventh season as a collegiate head coach, all with the Falcons ... she currently has an overall record of 200-175-2 (.533) ... Ross-Shaw is also the school's leader in MAC games, with a league mark of 98-66 (.598) ... she ranks first in BG history in conference winning percentage, and is second in overall winning pct., trailing only Sandy Haines (.557; 57-45-3).
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 100 overall wins as well as 50 MAC victories ... Ross-Shaw is the only head coach in school history with three 30-win seasons, and continues to set new school marks with each win.
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, a 1992 graduate of the Univ. 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 2001, she was inducted into the UT Athletics Hall of Fame.
ASSISTANT COACH Kyle Jamieson
Kyle Jamieson concluded his second season on the Falcon staff ... 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 had MAC ties prior to arriving at BG, having spent the 2000 season on the staff at Toledo ... in his two years, he has guided the Falcon pitchers to league-leading ERAs each season, and BG pitchers have picked up a MAC Tournament MVP award (Jody Johnson, 2004) and a MAC Pitcher-of-the-Year honor (Liz Vrabel, 2005).
BGSU IN THE MAC TOURNAMENT
The Falcons appeared in the MAC Tournament for the third consecutive season, the seventh time in the last eight years, and for the 10th time in school history ... 2005 marked the 15th 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 16-19, including a 5-1 record and a MAC Tournament championship in the 2004 season, the school's first ... BGSU has gone 1-2 on six of the 10 occasions the Falcons have 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 in 2003 ... prior to last 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.
FALCON NOTES
