Falcons Hit The Road For Stretch Run

Weekly Game Notes (.pdf)

Bowling Green, Ohio - Bowling Green plays its final four regular season volleyball matches on the road, beginning with two contests this week. The Falcons play at Miami (Ohio) Thursday night at 7 p.m. and at Northern Illinois Saturday at 7 p.m. While BGSU is currently slotted in the No. 12 spot for the MAC Tournament, the Falcons could leapfrog a handful of teams with a strong finish to the regular season.

THE OPPONENTS
• Miami enters the week with a record of 15-13 overall and 3-9 in MAC play, just one game ahead of the Falcons in the league standings. The RedHawks rank dead last in the conference in opponent hitting percentage, allowing teams to hit .250 on the season. Senior Michelle Metzler is a highly efficient player, hitting .322 on the season and leading the conference with a .404 attack percentage in league games only. Jackie Lang's 0.36 aces per set are fifth in the MAC. Head coach Carolyn Condit is 480-362 at Miami, the second-most wins in MAC history behind BGSU coach Denise Van De Walle.
• Northern Illinois is among the best teams in the MAC, entering the week with a record of 23-4 overall and 9-3 in conference play, trailing Ball State by one game for the league lead. Despite that fact, the Huskies do enter the week on a two-match losing streak for the first time all year. Northern Illinois leads the conference in attack percentage (.260), kills (13.92 per set), and aces (1.64 per set). Lauren Wicinski, who is a candidate for MAC Freshman of the Year, leads the league in kills (4.77 per set), aces (0.55 per set), and points (5.61 per set). Teammate Sarah Angelos is second in the MAC in attack percentage at .356. Head coach Ray Gooden is 152-123 all-time at Northern Illinois.

THE MAC TOURNAMENT LOOMS
If the MAC Tournament were to start today, the Bowling Green volleyball team would be the No. 12 seed and would play at No. 5 seed Western Michigan in the first round on Nov. 16. However, the Falcons trail two teams by just one game in the standings and another team by two games. The top four seeds (the winner of each division plus the two teams with the next-best conference records) all get a bye through the first round and seeds No. 5-8 host seeds No. 9-12 in the opening round. The eight teams left will compete in the MAC Tournament Nov. 19-21 in Toledo.

CAN YOU DIG IT?
Freshman libero Ashley Dunn has an active streak of 18 consecutive matches with at least 12 digs. She has posted at least 20 digs in six of those contests, peaking with a career-high 26 against both St. Francis (Pa.) and Eastern Michigan. Her streak is the longest string of 12+ dig matches since Chelsey Meek had a string of 21 straight to end the 2007 season and begin 2008 (20 in a row in 2007 and the first match of 2008). In fact, Dunn's 4.41 digs per set rank 12th nationally among all freshmen in NCAA Division I.

ACING THE COMPETITION
Junior Madison Nitta has taken over the MAC lead for aces per set in conference matches only by the slimmest of margins. The junior has played in the exact minimum number of league sets to qualify (22-of-44 for 50 percent) and has nine aces, an average of 0.41 per set. That total puts her just ahead of Northern Illinois' Lauren Wicinski, who is averaging 0.37 aces per set.

BLOCK PARTY
Early in the year, Bowling Green struggled to block at the net. The Falcons had 5.0 or more team blocks in only two of the first nine matches of the year. But the team now has 5.0 or more team blocks in 14 of the past 18 contests.

FIVE-SET SPECIALISTS
In recent history, Bowling Green has thrived in five-set matches, posting a .500 record or better in such contests every year since 2005. Overall, the team is 26-10 in such matches since 2005. This year, Bowling Green is 22 in matches that have gone the distance, losing a five-setter to Pittsburgh before winning matches against Eastern Illinois and Buffalo. The Falcons lost to Akron in five sets Saturday.

FRESHMEN CONTRIBUTIONS
With such a young team in 2010, Bowling Green is relying on freshmen to produce right from the start. The class has not disappointed so far, led by Paige Penrod and Danielle Tonyan. Penrod's 327 kills to this point are the second-most for any BGSU player in their first 27 collegiate matches over the past decade, while Tonyan's 265 rank fourth. As well, Lindsey Butterfield's 110 kills are the 10th most for a Falcon freshman. The rookie class is having just as big of an impact defensively as Ashley Dunn, Penrod, and Laura Avila rank first, second, and third on the team in digs. Dunn's 401 digs are the third-most for a BGSU freshman in her first 27 matches in the past decade.

THREE'S COMPANY
For three consecutive weeks, a Bowling Green freshman was awarded one of the Mid-American Conference's Player of the Week awards. Two weeks ago, Danielle Tonyan won the MAC East Division Offensive Player of the Week award after posting 17 kills against Miami and then a career-high 23 against Western Michigan. The week before, Paige Penrod was named MAC East Division Defensive Player of the Week and Ashley Dunn received the same award the week prior to that.

DISHING OUT THE ASSISTS
Freshman setter Laura Avila had an eye-popping 54 assists in the Falcons' three-set loss to Western Michigan. That total is the most for any BGSU player in a three-set match in the rally scoring era of collegiate volleyball (since 2001). The all-time school record for assists in a three set match is 63, achieved by Carey Amos in 1991, ironically also against Western Michigan.

PENROD AND TONYAN RISING TO THE TOP
Paige Penrod's 327 kills this year already rank as the third-most in a freshman season in program history. Susie Norris set the freshman record with 360 kills in 2000 and Penrod needs to average 6.6 kills per match over the final four regular season and at least one postseason contest to match that total. Penrod is 11th nationally among all freshmen in kills this year.

Along with that, Danielle Tonyan has moved into sixth place in kills for a freshman with 265 and needs nine more this week to match Heather Murphy (1996) for fifth place. If she gets to 300, Penrod and Tonyan will be the first freshmen duo in program history to have 300 kills in a season. They already rank second among freshmen pairs with 592 kills between them (In 1996, Lori Kemerer and Heather Murphy combined for 610) and should move into first place in that category.

THE YOUNGEST EVER?
This year's team has seven freshmen and four sophomores on the roster. No team under head coach Denise Van De Walle has ever had more than six freshmen and none have had a combined 11 freshmen and sophomores. Since volleyball became a varsity sport under the athletics department in 1976, there is no record of any other team having seven freshmen on the varsity roster. While it certainly means big things could be in store for the future, the Falcons will be relying on inexperienced players to learn through on-the-job training.

VAN DE WALLE STARTS ON THE NEXT 500
With a victory over rival Toledo in the Mid-American Conference Tournament a year ago, Bowling Green coach Denise Van De Walle won her 500th career match, becoming the first to reach that total as a coach in the MAC. The team's win over IUPUI during the opening weekend started her on the backside to 1,000 with her 501st victory. She is now 508-361 all-time, including 237-198 in conference play. In 28 seasons at the helm, she has 13 20-win seasons and a 30-win campaign in 1992. Her teams have won five MAC regular season championships and Van De Walle has been named MAC Coach of the Year four times.

NEW FALCON NEST
The volleyball team will move into the Stroh Center, a new convocation center, in 2011 along with the men's and women's basketball and gymnastics teams. It has been announced that the Falcons will open the arena Friday, Sept. 9, 2011 against Michigan State. The last time BGSU hosted a Big Ten school came in 2005 when the Falcons lost a five-set match to Ohio State in the BGSU Invitational.

PENROD/SPITLER SWEEP ALL-TOURNAMENT HONORS
Freshman Paige Penrod and senior Noelle Spitler were each named to an all-tournament team twice during the non-conference portion of the schedule. Penrod was honored for the first time in her college career at the Campus USA Credit Union Invitational, hosted by the University of Florida, and then followed that up by being named to the all-tournament team at Pittsburgh's Blue and Gold Invite. Spitler was honored at Michigan State's MSU Showcase and then at home in the Best Western Falcon Plaza Invitational.

HITTING THE BOOKS
Bowling Green has always stressed academics and Falcon volleyball has been a model of that philosophy. The 2009 BGSU volleyball team received the AVCA Academic Team Award for the 10th consecutive season, compiling a cumulative grade point average of 3.30 or better. The Falcons have the second longest streak in all of NCAA Division I and has received the award 11 times overall. The volleyball team has been a big part of BGSU leading the way in the MAC in academics. Bowling Green was awarded the Faculty Athletic Representatives' award for the second consecutive year in recognition of having the highest GPA among women student-athletes and the Falcons also received the 2010 MAC Institutional Academic Achievement Award for having the highest GPA among all of its student-athletes in the conference.

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