Bowling Green State University Athletics
Falcons Open Three-Game Homestand with Two Matches This Weekend
August 31, 2006 | Women's Soccer
Aug. 31, 2006
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BOWLING GREEN, Ohio - The Bowling Green State University women's soccer team, after playing a pair of tough road contests to open the season, begin the home portion of the schedule ... the Falcons of head coach Andy Richards will open a three-match homestand with a pair of matches at Cochrane Field this weekend ... BGSU, the 2005 Mid-American Conference regular-season and tournament champions, will host Xavier University in Friday (Sept. 1) action, with kickoff scheduled for 5:00 p.m. at Cochrane ... then, the Brown and Orange will return to action Sunday (Sept. 3), hosting Western Illinois University in a noontime start.
LIVE STATS ON THE WEB (WE HOPE)
The Xavier and WIU matches -- in fact, all of BGSU's home contests -- are scheduled to have live stats through the magic of the World Wide Web ... fans who can't make it to a match at Cochrane Field can get up-to-the-minute statistics on the web via GameTracker, simply by logging on to BGSUFalcons.com.
HOME IS WHERE THE GAMES ARE
Friday's Xavier match is the first of a school record-tying 11 home contests for the Falcons this season ... BGSU will play four of eight non-conference contests at Cochrane Field ... additionally, seven of September's nine matches are at home ... after playing just four of 11 MAC matches at home last year, the Brown and Orange will meet seven of the 11 league foes inside the friendly confines of Cochrane Field.
THE FALCONS ARE ...
* 80-95-16 all-time, two matches into the 10th season in program history;
* 40-47-11 in Mid-American Conference regular-season matches;
* 24-21-4 overall and 18-7-4 vs. MAC schools over the last two-plus seasons;
* 28-38-6 in the month of September through the years;
* 4-5-0 in home openers;
* 0-0-0 all-time vs. Xavier (the third consecutive first-time opponent for the Falcons to open the 2006 season).
HEAD COACH Andy Richards
Andy Richards is in his seventh season as a collegiate head coach, all with the Falcons ... the 2005 MAC Coach of the Year, Richards led the Brown and Orange to both the MAC's regular-season and tourney titles last fall ... he has an overall record of 61-61-12, including a MAC Tournament mark of 8-3-3 ... Richards has led BG to the five finest seasons in school history in his tenure, including '05, as he guided the Falcons to the first regular-season title in BG annals ... he has led BGSU to the semifinal round of the MAC Tournament on five occasions, to the championship match four times, and, in 2004, to the first league tourney title and NCAA Tournament berth in school history ... Richards and the Falcons repeated that feat last year, as BGSU again won the MAC Tournament crown ... Erik Burstein is in his first season with the program, while Ashley Wentzel, a co-captain on the 2005 team, is in her first season as a student assistant coach.
LAST WEEKEND
The Falcons suffered a pair of 3-0 losses to strong opposition on the road ... BGSU faced nationally-ranked Marquette Friday night (Aug. 25) and UW-Milwaukee Sunday afternoon (Aug. 27) ... the matches were part of the Milwaukee Cup ... in Friday's match, the #16/25 Golden Eagles held an 18-0 advantage in shot attempts ... junior Tiffany Hansen made seven saves in her complete-match effort ... UWM got on the board with 16 minutes left in the opening half, and scored a pair of second-half goals ... the Panthers outshot the Brown and Orange, 18-4, with Hansen making five stops in just over 82 minutes of action.
EISENHARD, SAHLY NAMED TO ALL-TOURNAMENT TEAM
A pair of second-year Falcons, sophomore Brianne Eisenhard and junior transfer Karie Sahly, were named to the all-tournament team at the Milwaukee Cup ... four players from both Marquette and UWM made the squad, with MU's Allison Mallams earning MVP honors ... Sacred Heart, the tournament's fourth participant, had one player on the all-tourney team.
YOUTH IS SERVED
Three Falcon freshmen -- Faith Juillerat, Colleen Kordan and Kayleigh Zajaros -- earned starts in their first-ever BGSU match, at Marquette on Friday ... frosh Samantha Bland, Jen Czapka, Kaitlyn Kobe, Stacey Lucas and Simone Toney also saw action in the match, meaning that a total of eight freshmen made their respective collegiate debuts on Friday night ... junior transfer Tiffany Hansen, who started in goal, gave the Falcons a total of nine players who were not on the 2005 roster that saw action in the contest.
YOUTH IS SERVED AGAIN
On Sunday at UWM, the Falcons' starting lineup included five freshmen -- Bland, Czapka, Juillerat, Lucas and Zajaros -- and a first-year transfer in Hansen ... Bland, Czapka and Lucas made their first collegiate starts in the match vs. the Panthers.
ROSSI RETURNS
Gina Rossi also saw playing time in both weekend matches ... for Rossi, Friday's game at Marquette marked her first game action since mid-November of 2004 ... Rossi missed the entire 2005 season with an anterior cruciate ligament injury.
LOOKING TO EXTEND THE STREAK
The Falcons are looking to extend a lengthy home shutout streak ... BGSU has posted eight consecutive shutouts at Cochrane Field ... the Falcon defense has not allowed a goal at home in a span of 814:44, since late in the first half of the Eastern Illinois match on Sept. 11, 2005.
THIS STREAK, TOO
The Falcons' home winning streak came to an end at a school-record eight matches with a scoreless tie in the MAC Tournament quarterfinal match vs. Toledo last November ... but, BGSU's unbeaten streak continues into the 2006 home campaign ... the Falcons are 7-0-2 in the last nine matches at Cochrane.
THOSE WHO STAY PLAY FOR CHAMPIONSHIPS
The BGSU women's soccer program is in its 10th season in 2006 ... through the first nine years, every player who has stayed with the program all four years has been a part of at least one team that has advanced to the MAC Tournament's championship match.
THE 2006 CAPTAINS
Senior Lindsay Carter and junior Janie Babich are the co-captains of the 2006 Falcons ... Carter, the team's lone senior, is also the squad's active career scoring leader, entering the season with 18 points in her first three years ... Babich, like Carter, was a starter on last year's MAC regular-season and tournament championship club.
THE OPPONENTS / THE SERIES
Xavier is 0-2 on the season after playing a pair of road matches last weekend ... the Musketeers suffered a 2-1 loss at Loyola Chicago and a 2-0 setback at Ohio State ... Angie Scarlato scored the team's lone goal of the weekend ... second-year head coach Alvin Alexander welcomed back 20 letterwinners, including nine starters, from last year's team that finished 9-7-2 overall and 4-3-2 in the Atlantic 10 Conference.
Western Illinois has begun the season with a 2-0 record for the first time in program history ... the Westerwinds posted a pair of home wins, 1-0 over Eastern Illinois and 4-1 against Northern Iowa ... Robyn Ruypers leads the team with two goals and five points ... last year, WIU went 9-6-3 overall under head coach Kevin Sherry, posting the first winning season in school history ... Sherry, in his second year at WIU, has 16 returning letterwinners, including eight starters.
The Falcons have never met Xavier in women's soccer ... BGSU leads Western Illinois, 1-0-0, in that series ... the Brown and Orange picked up a 3-0 home win on Sept. 5, 1998, at Cochrane Field.
ABOUT THE FALCONS
BGSU enters the Xavier match with a record of 0-2-0, after last weekend's two setbacks in Milwaukee ... the Falcons completed the 2005 campaign, the finest in school history, with an overall record of 14-7-2 ... BG finished MAC play with a 9-2-0 ledger, good for the first league regular-season title in program history ... the Falcons return 10 letterwinners, including four starters, from that team ... sophomore Corbie Yee is the top scorer among the returnees, after notching six goals and 15 points last fall ... senior Lindsay Carter had 10 points in 2005, while sophomore Kristin McDonald had seven points a year ago ... junior Janie Babich and sophomore Susan Hunter join Carter and Yee as returning starters ... last year's team had nine seniors, the most in school history ... this year's squad features 12 newcomers, the most since 1997, the first year of the program ... Andy Richards has just one senior, Carter, on his 24-player roster ... the Falcons have seven juniors, five sophomores and 11 freshmen on the '06 squad ... BGSU's recruiting class was rated tops in the MAC by Soccer Buzz.
FALCONS PICKED THIRD
The Falcons have been picked to finish third in the MAC in 2006, according to the preseason coaches poll ... the third-place prediction is the highest spot ever forecasted for the Brown and Orange in school history ... Central Michigan was picked to win the MAC regular-season and tournament titles, while Western Michigan was tabbed to finish second in the regular-season race ... following BGSU, Miami was picked for fourth, followed by Kent State and Toledo ... Ball State and Eastern Michigan were projected to tie for seventh, followed by Ohio, Northern Illinois, Buffalo and Akron.
RICHARDS AGREES TO THREE-YEAR CONTRACT
In February of 2006, Bowling Green reached an agreement with Falcon women's soccer coach Andy Richards on a three-year contract ... the contract runs through June 30, 2009 ... Richards' new contract marks the first time in school history that a soccer coach has received a multi-year contract ... Richards enters his seventh season as BGSU's head coach ... as mentioned, he was named the 2005 MAC Coach of the Year after guiding the Falcons to the MAC regular-season and tournament titles.
FALCON NOTES
Xavier, as mentioned earlier, marks the third first-time opponent for the Falcons in as many matches to begin the 2006 season ... those three teams -- Marquette, UWM and Xavier -- are the only first-time foes on BGSU's 19-match regular-season schedule ... in all, a total of 21 different players saw action in at least one match for the Brown and Orange on the trip to Milwaukee ... junior Tiernay Tilford is the lone Falcon to have played all 180 minutes of last weekend's matches ... BGSU also started the 2005 season with a pair of losses, and that '05 Falcon squad was 5-6-0 at the end of September, before finishing the regular season with eight consecutive wins ... BG won the MAC's regular-season and tourney titles last fall.
