Regular Season Comes To A Close This Weekend

Complete Weekly Game Notes (.pdf)

Bowling Green, Ohio - Bowling Green's regular season comes to a close this week as the Falcons play two final Mid-American Conference contests over the weekend. BGSU will play at Kent State Friday night at 7 p.m. and will follow that up with a contest at Ohio Saturday night at 7 p.m. Bowling Green is currently slotted into the No. 12 seed for the MAC Tournament and needs to win both contests and get some help to move up in the standings.

THE OPPONENTS
• Kent State enters the weekend with a record of 11-18 overall and 4-10 in MAC play. The Golden Flashes snapped a seven-match losing streak with a four-set win over Buffalo Saturday. The team ranks last in the MAC in both kills and assists but has been successful defensively, ranking second in the conference in blocks with 2.41 per set. Junior Liva Brivule has paced the Kent attack with 3.47 kills per set and she also ranks fourth in the league in blocks with 0.94 per set. Overall, she ranks fourth in conference with 4.19 points per set. Head coach Glen Conley is in his fourth season at Kent State with a record of 60-63 and 411-245 in 21 total years as a head coach.
• Ohio comes into the weekend with a one-game lead in the MAC East Division at 16-11 overall and 8-6 in league play. The Bobcats have made a late push by winning three of the team's last four matches. Ohio easily leads the MAC in blocks with 2.92 per set and ranks third with a .232 attack percentage. Senior Sue Jacobi's 4.26 kills per set ranks second in the conference while two other players lead the MAC in blocks. Junior Katie Post (1.35 blocks per set) and freshman Lexie Hartnett (1.07 per set) are first and second in the conference in that category. Head coach Ryan Theis is in his third year at the helm, leading Ohio to back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances and a 67-26 overall record.

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 the No. 5 seed in the first round on Nov. 16. Eastern Michigan, Northern Illinois, and Western Michigan are currently in a three-way tie for third and one of those teams would fall to the No. 5 seed. Bowling Green, however, could climb as high as the No. 10 seed by beating Kent State and Ohio this weekend. 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.

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 16 of the past 20 contests, including 10.0 blocks against Miami this past weekend.

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.

DUNN DEAL
With 421 digs this season, Ashley Dunn is about to post one of the top 10 single-season dig totals in program history. Angellette Love's total of 424 digs in 1992 is the 10th highest total in BGSU volleyball history. Chelsey Meek set the school record with 663 digs in 2008. On top of that, Dunn's 4.34 digs per set is the fourth-best single season average at BGSU. Meek holds the school record with 5.62 digs per set in 2007.

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 351 kills to this point are the most for any BGSU player in their first 29 collegiate matches over the past decade, while Tonyan's 277 rank fourth. As well, Lindsey Butterfield's 124 kills are tied for the ninth 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 421 digs are the third-most for a BGSU freshman in her first 29 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 351 kills this year already rank as the second-most in a freshman season in program history. Susie Norris set the freshman record with 360 kills in 2000 and Penrod needs just 10 kills in the team's final two regular season matches plus the postseason to surpass her. Penrod is ninth nationally among all freshmen in kills this year.

Along with that, Danielle Tonyan has moved into fifth place in kills for a freshman with 277 and needs 23 more to reach 300 in her rookie season. If she gets to that mark, Penrod and Tonyan would be the first freshmen duo in program history to have 300 kills in a season. They already rank first among freshmen pairs with 628 kills (Lori Kemerer and Heather Murphy are second with 610 kills in 1996).

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 508-363 all-time, including 237-200 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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