BGSU Begins Conference Play This Weekend, Facing Northern and Western

The Bowling Green State University women's soccer team, having completed the non-league schedule with a trip to the left coast, now heads to the Mid-American Conference's "West Coast" this weekend ... the Falcons of head coach Andy Richards travel to DeKalb, Ill., to take on Northern Illinois University in Friday's (Sept. 25) MAC opener ... kickoff is scheduled for 4:00 p.m. locally (5:00 p.m. Eastern) at the NIU Soccer and Track & Field Complex ... then, the Brown and Orange will travel to Kalamazoo, Mich., to face Western Michigan University on Sunday afternoon (Sept. 27) ... that game is scheduled to begin at 2:30 p.m. at the WMU Soccer Complex ... the BGSU-WMU game is the second half of a doubleheader, as the WMU men host Centenary at noon.

BGSU NOTES & STATS (PDF) | MAC NOTES & STATS (PDF)

LAST WEEKEND
The Falcons closed non-conference play with a pair of games at the UC Riverside Tournament in Riverside, Calif. ... BGSU dropped 2-0 decisions to both the host school and UC Irvine ... all three Falcon goalkeepers saw action on the weekend ... redshirt junior Alexa Arsenault played the first half of each game, making six saves against UCR and eight stops vs. UCI ... redshirt freshman Becca Ison played the second half of Friday's (Sept. 18) game vs. the Highlanders, with three saves ... true freshman Laura Arnold worked the second 45 minutes vs. the Anteaters Sunday (Sept. 20), making five stops ... BGSU allowed one goal in each of the four halves over the weekend.

THE FALCONS ARE ...
• 116-123-23 all-time, nearly halfway through the 13th season in program history;
• 50-37-9 overall in the last four-plus seasons;
• 59-59-13 in Mid-American Conference regular-season matches;
• 39-21-8 vs. MAC schools over the last five seasons (including regular-season and tournament matches), and 31-16-6 vs. league foes in the last four years;
• 60-52-9 at home, and 30-13-3 at Cochrane Field in the last four-plus seasons;
• 11-2-1 at Cochrane since the start of the '08 season, with the only losses in that time coming to Michigan State (Aug. 31, 2008) and Saint Bonaventure (Sept. 11, 2009);
• 48-61-12 in road contests in program history;
• 8-10-2 all-time in neutral-site matches;
• 46-50-8 in the month of September through the years;
• 6-5-1 in MAC openers in the program's history;
• 8-4-0 in the first MAC road match of the season;
• 4-2-0 when the MAC opener is also the MAC road opener;
• 1-1-0 in games played on Sept. 25 in the history of the program, with a 2-1 home win over Buffalo in 1998 and a 4-0 loss at Western Michigan in 2005;
• 1-0-1 in Sept. 27 matches over the years, including a 1-0 road mark (a 1-1 home tie vs. Kent State in '98 and a 2-1 winn at Akron four years later);
• 46-1-1 in the last 48 games when scoring first (16-0-0 since the start of last season); and
• 0-11-2 since the start of 2008 in matches in which the opponent scored first.

THIS SEEMS FAMILIAR
The 2009 season is the fifth consecutive year in which the Falcons have opened MAC play against Northern Illinois ... and, in each of those seasons, BGSU's second game has been against Western Michigan ... BGSU has split the two games in three of the last four years, and the Falcons won both games in the 2006 season ... this marks the second year in a row in which BG has opened the MAC schedule in DeKalb ... in fact, 2009 is the fifth time in the Falcons' history that the league road opener has been at NIU ... BGSU is 3-1-0 in those games to date.

FALCONS PICKED THIRD
With all 12 teams opening MAC play on Friday, perhaps this is a good time to revisit the preseason poll ... the Falcons have been picked to finish third in the conference in 2009, according to the preseason coaches poll, released Aug. 20 ... Toledo was the coaches' choice to win the '09 MAC regular-season and tournament titles ...
2009 MAC PRESEASON POLL:
1 - Toledo; 2 - Central Michigan; 3 - BOWLING GREEN; 4 - Eastern Michigan; 5 - Miami; 6 - Kent State; 7 - Northern Illinois; 8 - Ohio; 9 - Western Michigan; 10 - Ball State; 11 - Akron; 12 - Buffalo.
PREDICTED MAC TOURNAMENT CHAMPION (votes): Toledo (10); Bowling Green (1); Eastern Michigan (1).

ABOUT THE FALCONS
BGSU has a record of 4-5-0 on the season ... the Falcons are 3-1-0 in home games, 1-3-0 in road contests and 0-1-0 in neutral-site matches to date ... BGSU is coming off a trip to California, in which the Falcons dropped 2-0 decisions to UC Riverside and UC Irvine at the UCR Tournament ... all 25 healthy players on the BGSU roster saw action in at least one of the two games ... this year to date, the Falcons' nine goals have come from seven different players ... sophomore Megan Amann and freshman Keely Chandler each have scored twice, with Chandler's goals both coming against Youngstown State (Sept. 13) ... Amann leads the team in points, with six, while classmate Leah Johnson has five points, including a team-high three assists ... Chandler and sophomores Alyssa Zuccaro and Katelyn Turner have four points apiece ... Turner and Zuccaro each have a goal and two assists this year to date ... four different Falcons – Johnson, Zuccaro, senior Samantha Bland and junior Alicia Almond – have started all nine games ... Johnson leads the team in minutes played with 768, while Almond has played 742 and Bland 715 ... in goal, three different 'keepers have seen action, with redshirt junior Alexa Arsenault having played 516 of the 810 minutes ... Arsenault has a 3-4-0 record, a team-high 38 saves and a goals-against average of 1.05 ... redshirt freshman Becca Ison has a GAA of 1.13, in nearly 159 minutes of work ... true freshman Laura Arnold has played 135 minutes, and has a 1-1-0 record and a 2.67 GAA ... head coach Andy Richards, in his 10th season in Northwest Ohio, welcomed back 18 letterwinners, including nine starters, from last year's club that finished 12-6-4 overall and 6-3-2 in MAC action ... the '08 team's overall winning percentage of .636 was the second best in school history, and last year's club set a school record for fewest losses in a season.

FALCON COACH ANDY RICHARDS
BGSU head coach Andy Richards, in his 10th season at the Falcon helm, is one of the most successful mentors in MAC women's soccer history ... Richards has guided the Falcons to an overall record of 97-89-19, and a record of 52-42-9 in MAC regular-season matches ... BGSU is 10-5-5 in MAC Tournament matches during his tenure, and no MAC coach has as many trips to the league tourney's title game as Richards ... the 2007 season marked the fifth time he had guided a BG squad to the championship match ... two of those appearances – in 2004 and 2005 – resulted in MAC Tournament titles and trips to the NCAA Championships ... Richards and the Falcons also won the '05 regular-season crown ... BGSU reached an agreement with Richards on a two-year contract extension, in May of 2008 ... his contract now runs through June 30, 2011 ... Richards had inked a three-year contract in February of 2006, marking the first time in school history that a soccer coach had received a multi-year contract.

THE OPPONENTS / THE SERIES
Northern Illinois will enter Friday's BGSU match with a 4-4-0 record, and the Huskies have won three of the last four matches after a 1-3 start to the season ... last weekend, Northern picked up home wins over Oakland (4-0; Sept. 18) and Liberty (2-1; Sept. 20) ... the team is 2-1-0 in home games to date, with the loss coming to Loyola (Ill.) ... Lisa Maier and Kim Schmitt each have four points on two goals this year ... in net, Lindsey Curnock has played in all eight games, and has two shutouts, 31 saves and a GAA of 0.76 ... head coach Carrie Barker, in her second year in DeKalb, welcomed back 17 letterwinners, including eight starters, from last year's team that went 9-6-5 overall and 5-4-2 in MAC play ... the school's athletics web site is niuhuskies.com.

The Falcons trail Northern Illinois, 7-6-0, in the all-time series between the teams ... the Huskies have won two consecutive meetings, with a 3-2 victory at Cochrane Field two years ago and a 2-1 triumph in DeKalb last season (Sept. 26, 2008) ... BGSU is 4-1-0 in meetings in DeKalb ... in fact, the home team has won only three times in the 13 series meetings (BGSU in 2004 and 2006; NIU last season) ... Alyssa Zuccaro scored in last year's game, with an assist from Colleen Kordan, while Alicia Almond had one of the Falcons' goals in the 2007 meeting ... complete game-by-game results can be found in the PDF version of these notes.

Western Michigan will take a record of 3-3-1 into a Friday match vs. Toledo, before hosting BGSU two days later ... the Broncos are coming off a 2-0 loss to Marquette in Sunday's (Sept. 20) home opener ... that setback snapped a four-match unbeaten streak that included wins over SE Missouri State, Oakland and Wright State and a tie against Northern Iowa ... Ali Jacobs, despite having played in just three of the first seven games, has team-high totals of four points on two goals ... both of her goals came in the Wright State game, a 2-1 overtime win Friday (Sept. 18) ... Julia Francy has played every second in goal for the Broncos, and has two shutouts, 33 saves and a GAA of 0.83 ... Suzie Grech is in her first year as the interim head coach, after spending two seasons as an assistant coach for the Broncos ... Western returned 10 starters from last year's team that went 7-11-1 overall and 6-4-1 in the MAC ... the school's athletics web site is www.wmubroncos.com.

The Falcons trail Western Michigan, 8-7-1, in that series, but BGSU has won the last four meetings ... the Falcons are 1-6-0 in road games vs. the Broncos, but that win came last season, a 1-0 victory on Sept. 28 ... the teams met again in BG in the quarterfinal round of the MAC Tournament, with the Falcons pulling out a 2-0 win (Nov. 2, 2008) ... Katie Stephenson scored BG's goal in the regular-season win, while Colleen Kordan had a goal and assisted on Alyssa Zuccaro's score in the league tourney matchup ... Jackie Tamerlano also has a goal vs. the Broncos, having scored in the Falcons' 3-1 home win in 2007 ... WMU's last series win, a 4-0 victory, came in 2005.

LOOKING TO EXTEND SOME IMPRESSIVE STREAKS
BGSU is looking to extend several streaks in 2009 ... last year, the Falcons finished with a winning record in MAC play for the fifth time in the 12-year history of the program ... the Falcons have posted four-straight winning conference records for the first time ever ... BG's only other winning MAC mark had come in 2002 (7-4-1) ... the '08 Falcons finished among the top-four teams in the MAC standings for only the fifth time in school history, and the fourth-straight year ... overall, the Falcons have now posted five consecutive seasons of double-digit wins for the first time in school annals ... and, BG has had four-straight records of at least .500 for the first time ever

THE 2009 CAPTAINS
Seniors Samantha Bland and Colleen Kordan are the co-captains of the 2009 women's soccer Falcons.

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