Bowling Green State University Athletics
Spartans, Golden Flashes and Bulls on Docket for Falcons
March 27, 2007 | Softball
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March 27, 2007
BOWLING GREEN, Ohio - The Falcons (14-4) will close the month of March with three Regional opponents by traveling to East Lansing, Mich. to play Michigan State (18-13) on Wednesday before opening the Mid-American Conference season at home on Friday afternoon for a pair against Kent State. Buffalo will also invade the BGSU Softball Field on Saturday and Sunday.
To date the Falcons are 17-11 on home openers. Since the millennium change, BGSU is 4-3 in their home debut. In the MAC, BGSU is 14-9 when opening the season regardless of location.
If BGSU wins the first Kent contest, head coach Shannon Salsburg will become the fifth BGSU head coach to win her first game at BGSU Softball Field. Sandy Haines ('82), Gail Davenport ('88), Jacquie Joseph ('93) and Leigh Ross ('99) all accomplished the feat in their inaugural outing.
FOLLOW THE FALCONS
Listen to Wednesday's game at State by clicking HERE or by visiting WWW.BGRSO.ORG and clicking on the WFAL logo on the top right corner ... Anthony Bellino and Drew Evans will have the call beginning at 2:45 p.m. ... Friday's opener will be broadcast on 88.1 WBGU starting at 12:45 p.m. ... information regarding audio for all other games will be made available in the coming days ... all BGSU home games can be tracked live via GAMETRACKER from the BGSU Softball schedule.
HOMERUN HUNT
If the Falcons continue their current hitting track, they may very well shatter the 2005 homerun record of 32 in a single season ... in 28 complete seasons, only four have seen the Falcons go the distance more than 20 times ('98-23, '03-20, '05-32, '06-24) ... current Falcons with at least one long ball include: Hayley Wiemer (4), Allison Vallas (4), Dawnjene DeLong (3), Susan Sontag (3), Carly Riepenhoff (2), and Jeanine Baca (1) ... head coach Shannon Salsburg, a true hitter's coach, is also breaking records as the only first year head coach to lead a team to ten-plus long balls in her initial year at the helm.
FILLIN' THE TROPHY CASE
In three spring tournaments, the Falcons appeared in three championship games and brought home two tournament crowns ... BGSU won both the Panera Bread Challenge and the Charleston Southern Tournaments while taking second in the USF Speedline tournament ... while on the road, Hayley Wiemer was named CSU tournament MVP ... Wiemer was also named both MAC East Player of the Week and Scholar-Athlete of the Week for the week of Mar. 9 following her performance in Charleston ... Emily Gouge and Susan Sontag were also named to the CSU All-Tournament team ... Gouge also picked up honors as the Most Valuable Pitcher at the USF tournament ... she was named the MAC East Pitcher of the Week four days later.
TRADING SPACES
Falcon baseball (10-11) will also take on State (7-8) Wednesday afternoon in Bowling Green at Warren Steller Field ... more than likely the MSU baseball and BGSU softball buses will pass each other on Interstate-96 as baseball will begin at 2:00 p.m. in Ohio while softball will start an hour later at 3:00 p.m. in Michigan.
ABOUT THE FALCONS - TOURNAMENT STYLE
With the sticks...
The two biggest power producers in the South were sophomore Hayley Wiemer and junior Allison Vallas ... Wiemer finished the tournament season with team highs in batting (.375) and slugging (.729) percentages and hits (18) ... in Charleston, she racked up a team tournament high .625 batting average and was slugging 1.313 ... her spectacular performance was complimented by a team high three homeruns, 21 total bases and 10 hits and a tournament MVP nod ... Vallas and freshman Susan Sontag slugged above .500 and batted over .315 ... Sontag led all freshman in runs (3), hits (15) and at bats (46) ... seven of the nine designated starters have hit at least one to the fence in tournament play ... Bowling Green is also out batting their opponents in every statistical hitting scenario ... collectively, those pitchers who faced the BG sticks accounted for a 4.05 ERA.
On the bags...
The Orange and Brown accumulated 196 total bases and rode a .350 on base percentage in the South ... along the infield baseline the Falcons were even more threatening to the defense seeing as they have a 65% (15-23) of advancing their placement on a steal.
Off the hill...
Against BGSU, 123 of the 404 total batters were sent back to the bench on the three count ... Emily Gouge (6-2) was responsible for a staff high 70 (57%) of the K's while fellow veteran Hayley Wiemer (6-2) contributed 40 (33%) ... the remaining 13 were thrown by southpaw freshman, Sharon Palma (2-0) ... collectively, the three posted a 1.53 ERA and shutout five opponents ... in the 16 games, opposing swingers were held to a .183 batting average.
On the defense...
BGSU allowed just 12 doubles and six homeruns ... even more, opponents laid a big goose egg in the three base column ... the Falcons also held their opponents to a .257 slugging percentage and a low .183 batting average ... Bowling Green allowed just 104 bases to be touched in 16 games; nearly half of their own total amount (194).
FALCONS AND THE MID-AMERICAN CONFERENCE
In 23 complete seasons of competition, the BGSU Falcons are 319-268-1 in the Mid-American Conference ... the Falcons hold four regular season titles ('88, '93, '00, '01) and one tournament title ('04) ... BGSU boasts three Player of the Year winners (Lienhardt, '88, Rango, '05, Rouhana, '01) and one Pitcher of the Year (Vrabel, '05) ... the Falcons also have produced three Freshman of the Year (Askins, '92, Wolf, '93), including current sophomore Hayley Wiemer ('06) ... last season Allison Vallas joined an elite group of BGSU student-athletes as she was named first-team Academic All-MAC ... dozens of additional Falcons have been named to various other MAC honors.
PRESEASON CRYSTAL BALL PREDICTIONS
The head coaches picked Western Michigan as their preseason favorite to win the Western Division and the post-season tournament crowns ... Kent State finished above Bowling Green to earn to the first place nod in the East ... according to the voting, WMU edged Kent State in a slim five-to-four voting margin while Northern Illinois and Eastern Michigan each received one first place vote ... in the East, Akron and Ohio are expected to follow BGSU and Kent State in third and fourth, respectively ... Miami and Buffalo rounded out the divisional rankings ... in the opposing division, directional Michigan leads the West as Western, Central and Eastern are ranked first through third, respectively ... Northern Illinois, Ball State and geographic rival Toledo followed suit at the four through six positions.
INSIDE THE BATTERS BOX
Michigan State (3/28, 3:00 p.m.)
The Spartans will enter the match with an 18-13 overall record ... the game will be the home opener for MSU at Old College Field ... in 31 games, Kara Weigle leads the Spartans with a .402 batting average ... she has a team-high 41 hits on the season including 16 hits for two or more bases ... Nikki Nicosia is also boasting higher than a .350 batting average (.355) ... the pitching staff have combined for seven shutouts ... most recently, the Spartans shut-out Miami (8-0) in a five inning no-hitter in Oxford, Ohio ... earlier in the day, MSU narrowly beat Toledo 9-8 ... in three games against MAC opponents, MSU is 3-0 and has out scored the MAC 30-17 ... the Falcons are 10-6 all-time against State ... in their last meeting, the Green and White took the 1-2 win in Michigan ... predicted forecast for Wednesday is a high of 50 degrees and a 60 % chance of rain showers.
Kent State (3/30, 1:00 p.m. DH)
In her 21st year at Kent State, head coach Karen Linder has led the Golden Flashes to a 13-11 record thus far ... this past weekend, the Golden Flash went 4-2 in Deland, Florida at the Stetson Classic ... KSU allowed just two scores in their last three games ... Jamie Fitzpatrick leads KSU from the plate with a .377 batting average ... she has hit half (8) of the KSU homeruns (16) this season ... her 26 hits lead KSU ... Kylie Reynolds' pitch has been a flash as she leads KSU with a 0.94 ERA and six wins in 14 appearances ... she has shutout three opponents and allowed 43 base hits ... KSU boasts a 1.74 ERA in 161 innings allowing 48 runs on 101 hits in 573 at bats ... their staff, much like the Falcons, has not given up a three base hit ... all-time, KSU leads the Falcons 46-40-1 ... in 2006, the Falcons beat the Golden Flashes twice in the regular season while losing once in the MAC tournament ... predicted forecast for Friday is mostly cloudy with a high of 59 degrees and a 10% chance of precipitation.
Buffalo (3/31, 2:00 - 4/1, 1:00 p.m.)
Under eighth year head coach Marie Curran, the Bulls have accumulated a 2-25 record in 2007 ... both wins came in shut-out games over Northern Colorado (2/24, 7-0) and Boston University (2/17, 1-0) ... UB returns nine position players to the Bulls team which went 16-42 overall and 5-15 in the MAC last season ... together the Bulls are batting .217 and have a 7.91 ERA ... Marcy Hansen leads all Bulls starters with a .257 batting average ... from the mound, Dana Carter has a team low 6.60 ERA ... in what may be good news for the Falcons, UB has allowed 26 homeruns this season ... UB is currently being outscored 234-68 ... BGSU has beat Buffalo in 12 of their 15 meetings ... one year ago, BGSU picked up a pair of DH wins over the Bulls in Buffalo ... predicted forecast for Saturday is cloudy with a high of 62 degrees and a 10% chance of precipitation ... predicted forecast for Sunday is stormy with a high of 54 degrees and a 40% chance of precipitation.
QUOTING THE SENIORS
On opening their last MAC season...
"I am excited about the MAC this year because it is going to be really competitive and if we continue to work hard I think we will be very successful. I still can't believe my four years have come and gone so fast. I think all of the seniors were excited for this year to begin, but know we have a job to do and that is lead our team. I am going to try to cherish every moment on and off the field with my teammates."
- Co-captain, Jeanine Baca
"Obviously, we are all excited to play at home, and especially open with Kent. We are definitely ready and excited about the weekend! We have been waiting for this since September and it will be great to be at home so everyone can see for themselves what a great team we have, how much fun we have playing together and how well we have been playing!"
- Co-captain Ashley Zirkle
"I am extremely excited about beginning the MAC season. It is important to start the MAC season strong and set the tone for the rest of the season. This is an important weekend for us and another step towards achieving our goals."
- Lauren Hoffman
"This is a huge weekend for us. We want to come out and set the tone for how we want to play ball in the MAC Conference. I feel that our entire team has been working extremely hard to prepare for the MAC Conference and we are excited about having our home opener against Kent."
- Emmy Ramsey
