Falcons Face Eastern, Central in Second Weekend of MAC Play

The Bowling Green State University women's soccer team, having opened Mid-American Conference play with a pair of wins for the first time in four years, now faces the teams that finished one-two in last year's conference standings ... the Falcons of head coach Andy Richards will head north for a Friday (Oct. 1) match against Eastern Michigan University ... that contest will begin at 4:00 p.m. at EMU's Scicluna Field ... Eastern tied for second in the MAC last season ... then, the Brown and Orange will return home for a Sunday (Oct. 3) game vs. Central Michigan University, beginning at 1:00 p.m. ... the Chippewas won the MAC's regular-season and tournament titles in 2009 ... the CMU game is BGSU's only home action over the next four matches.

BGSU NOTES & STATS - PDF | MAC NOTES & STATS - PDF

FREE ADMISSION
As part of BGSU's Centennial celebration, admission to all home Falcon soccer regular-season matches in the 2010 season is free.

PINK OUT
Sunday's game vs. Central Michigan is the team's annual PINK OUT match ... fans attending the game are encouraged to wear pink in support of breast cancer awareness ... the BGSU players will be wearing special pink T-shirts, provided by the BGSU Bookstore, during warmups ... fans will have the opportunity to purchase the same T-shirts at the game, with a portion of the proceeds going toward the local branch of the Susan G. Komen Foundation for Breast Cancer Research.

LIVE STATISTICS
Again in 2010, all BGSU home women's soccer matches, and most (if not all) away contests, will have live statistics available on the web ... if you can't make it to Scicluna Field on Friday or Cochrane Field on Sunday, simply log on to BGSUFalcons.com at game time ... the live stats links can be found on the front page of the site (in the 'schedule' section) or by clicking on the women's soccer 2010 schedule and choosing the corresponding match.

LAST WEEKEND
The Falcons picked up a pair of shutout wins at home last weekend ... BGSU opened MAC play with Friday's (Sept. 24) 4-0 victory over Buffalo at Cochrane Field, then downed Kent State by a 1-0 final Sunday afternoon (Sept. 26) ... junior Alyssa Zuccaro had a hat trick against the Bulls, while freshman Madeline Wideman scored her first collegiate goal ... junior Megan Amann assisted on each of Zuccaro's last two scores, while senior Alexa Arsenault made three saves for the shutout win over UB ... against KSU, Arsenault had a season-high nine stops to earn her second-straight clean sheet ... freshman Tracy Togba scored the first goal of her Falcon career with just 8:27 left in the second half, with Zuccaro providing the primary assist.

FALCONS SWEEP MAC WEEKLY AWARDS
The Falcons swept the Mid-American Conference's weekly honors, the league office announced on Monday (Sept. 27) ... junior Alyssa Zuccaro was named the MAC's Offensive Player of the Week, while senior Alexa Arsenault captured the MAC Defensive-Player-of-the-Week award ... Arsenault's award was her fourth such honor as a Falcon, while Zuccaro earned a league P-O-W award for the first time ... Zuccaro had seven points as the Falcons swept two games over the weekend ... she had a hat trick vs. Buffalo, and assisted on the lone goal in a 1-0 win over Kent State ... Arsenault made a total of 12 saves en route to a pair of clean sheets ... her season-high total of nine saves vs. KSU included several spectacular stops.

ABOUT THE FALCONS
BGSU enters Friday's Eastern Michigan match with a record of 4-6-1, and the Falcons are off to a 2-0-0 start in Mid-American Conference play ... the Falcons' non-conference opponents included two teams each from the Big East, Big Ten and Atlantic 10 conferences ... BG is 3-5-0 at home and 1-1-1 on the road ... the Falcons' lone result over the first six matches was a scoreless tie at Niagara (Sept. 3) ... BGSU broke a nine-match winless streak, dating to last season, with a 2-1 win over Cleveland State on Sept. 12, beginning a streak in which the Falcons have won four of the last five matches ... junior Alyssa Zuccaro leads the team with 15 points on the year, including six goals – twice the total scored by any BGSU player last year – while sophomore Sarah VonderBrink has scored six points ... senior co-captain Katie Stephenson and freshman Madeline Wideman have five points apiece ... junior Megan Amann's four points all have come on assists, as she leads the team in the latter category ... each of the team's three goalkeepers – fifth-year senior Alexa Arsenault, redshirt sophomore Becca Ison and true sophomore Laura Arnold – started at least one match in non-conference play ... Arsenault has started seven matches, including each of the last six ... she has team-leading totals of 650 minutes played, 38 saves, two shutouts and a goals-against average of 1.11 ... Arnold has made three starts, playing 225 minutes, and has 13 saves and a GAA of 2.40 ... Ison has played 147-plus minutes, and has seven stops and a 2.44 GAA ... head coach Andy Richards, in his 11th season at the helm, welcomed back a total of 17 letterwinners, including eight starters, from last year's club ... BGSU's returning players combined for over 81 percent of the team's goals and 76% of the assists a year ago ... eight of the top-nine scorers returned from a season ago ... Amann paced the Falcons with nine points last fall, including two goals and a team-high five assists ... Katelyn Turner and Zuccaro scored eight and seven points, respectively, during their sophomore campaigns ... Turner tied for the team lead with three goals ... sophomore Keely Chandler also had three goals in her initial season at BGSU ... additionally, all three goalkeepers returned from last season's roster ... Arsenault started 17 of the Falcons' 20 matches between the posts last fall, while Arnold made three starts.

FALCON COACH ANDY RICHARDS
BGSU head coach Andy Richards, in his 11th season at the helm, has proven himself to be one of the most successful mentors in MAC women's soccer history ... he has guided the Falcons to an overall record of 102-102-23, and a record of 55-49-12 in MAC regular-season play ... he picked up the 100th victory of his collegiate head-coaching career in the Falcons' 3-2 win at Indiana State (Sept. 19) ... Richards' teams perennially play one of the toughest non-conference schedules in the MAC ... in his first 10 years in BG, he led the Falcons to the MAC Tournament on eight occasions, with the team advancing to the semifinals seven times ... BGSU is 10-5-5 in MAC Tournament matches during his tenure, and no coach has more trips to the league tourney title game than Richards' five ... 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 ... a native of Warwick, England, Richards earned his Bachelor of Education degree from Sheffield City Polytechnic in 1989 ... he received his Master of Education degree from Oregon State in 1997.

'Z' FOR THREE
Junior Alyssa Zuccaro had her first collegiate hat trick in the Falcons' 4-0 win over Buffalo Friday (Sept. 24) ... it was the first hat trick by a BGSU player since Nov. 5, 2004 (Kristy Coppes vs. Western Michigan in the MAC Tournament semifinals), and was only the second in a MAC regular-season game in school history ... Samantha Meister had four goals in a 4-3 win at Northern Illinois on Oct. 12, 2003.

A FEW MORE NOTES ABOUT 'Z'
Junior Alyssa Zuccaro has had a great deal of involvement in the Falcons' offensive output over the past several games ... a few more notes about 'Z' ...

• Zuccaro, who had a then career-high five points in the Indiana State game (Sept. 19), topped that total with six points vs. Buffalo on Friday (Sept. 24) ... with an assist on the game-winning goal vs. Kent State on Sunday (Sept. 26), 'Z' has scored 12 points over the last three games.

• 'Z' became the first Falcon to score five goals over a two-game span in over six years ... Kristy Coppes had six goals, all in one game, against Duquesne on Aug. 27, 2004.

• Zuccaro has shattered her goal and point totals for all of last season ... through 11 games this year, she has 15 points on six goals and a three assists ... Zuccaro totalled seven points in the 2009 season, with two goals and three assists.

• Zuccaro's point total is more than any Falcon had during all of 2009 ... Megan Amann led last year's club with a total of nine points ... Zuccaro's total of six goals on the year is twice as many as any BGSU player scored last season.

• Over the last three games, Zuccaro has moved up no fewer than eight spots on the BGSU career scoring list ... Zuccaro, BG's active career scoring leader, now has 33 career points ... she sits in 10th place on the school's career list ... 'Z' ranks eighth on the BG list for career goals, with 13.

AND, A FEW NOTES ABOUT ALEXA ARSENAULT
• Senior goalkeeper Alexa Arsenault had a pair of shutouts last weekend ... the complete-match shutout against Kent State on Sunday was her second of the season and the 22nd of her career ... she extended her own BGSU record in the latter category.

• Arsenault has been in between the posts for BGSU's last four matches vs. KSU, and has gone a total of 380 minutes without allowing a goal against the Flashes.

• Arsenault had blanked Buffalo two days before the Kent State match ... two of Arsenault's career shutouts have come against the Bulls, and she played over 74 minutes in another shutout win over UB ... Arsenault has a personal shutout streak of 310:17 vs. the Bulls, dating to the 2007 season.

THE FALCONS ARE ...
• 121-136-27 in the history of the program, which began in 1997;
• 55-50-13 overall in the last five seasons (plus 11 matches);
• 62-66-16 in Mid-American Conference regular-season matches;
• 42-28-11 vs. MAC schools over the last six-plus seasons (including regular-season & tourney matches), and 34-23-9 vs. league foes in the last five-plus years;
• 64-58-11 at home, and 34-19-5 at Cochrane Field in the last five-plus seasons;
• 15-8-3 at Cochrane since the start of the '08 season;
• 49-68-14 in road contests in program history;
• 8-10-2 all-time in neutral-site matches;
• 50-58-11 in the month of October through the years;
• 45-38-8 in October games in the Andy Richards Era;
• 50-1-2 in the last 53 games when scoring first (20-0-1 since the start of 2008); and
• 1-24-3 since the start of the '08 season in matches in which the opponent scored first (with the win coming at Indiana State).

THE EAGLES / THE BGSU-EMU SERIES
Eastern Michigan will enter the weekend with an overall record of 4-5-2, and the Eagles head into the BGSU match with a MAC mark of 1-0-1 ... last weekend, EMU battled to a scoreless draw with Ohio before downing Akron, 4-1 ... Paige Sheridan leads a balanced scoring attack with seven points ... Maggie Christensen has three goals to tie Sheridan for the team lead in that category ... Monique Budani has played every second of every game in goal, and has 84 saves, three shutouts and a goals-against average of 1.46 ... head coach Scott Hall, in his 12th season as head coach of the Eagles, welcomed back 12 letterwinners, including eight starters, from last year's club ... the 2009 Eagles went 11-4-6 overall and 6-1-4 in MAC play, tying for second in the league regular-season standings ... the school's athletics web site is www.emueagles.com.

The Falcons trail Eastern Michigan, 9-7-1, in the all-time series between the teams, and EMU has won each of the last two meetings, both by 2-0 scores and both in Ypsilanti ... this season marks the third-straight fall that the Falcons play Eastern on the road in the regular season ... the Falcons are 4-5-1 in road matches vs. the Eagles, with three of the four away wins coming in the quarterfinal round of the MAC Tournament ... the home team has won only seven times in the 17 series meetings.

THE CHIPPEWAS / THE BGSU-CMU SERIES
Central Michigan has a record of 5-3-1 on the season, and the Chippewas will take a 2-0-0 MAC record into a Friday game at Miami ... last weekend, Central won a pair of home matches, downing Akron (3-0) and Ohio (3-1) in Mount Pleasant ... the Chippewas are 4-0 in home games, 0-3-1 in road games and 1-0 in neutral-site contests this season to date ... Nicole Samuel and Laura Twidle each have six points this fall ... Samuel has a team-leading three goals, while Twidle has scored twice and is tied for the CMU lead with two assists ... Shay Mannino and Stefanie Turner have split time in goal all year, with each having played in all eight matches to date ... Mannino has 13 saves and a GAA of just 0.42, while Turner also has 13 saves, with a GAA of 0.89 ... Tom Anagnost is in his third season (second full) at the CMU helm ... he welcomed back 13 letterwinners, including 10 starters, from last year's team that won the MAC's regular-season and tournament titles ... the Chippewas finished 17-4-3 overall and 9-0-2 in conference play ... the school's athletics web site is www.CMUChippewas.com.

The Falcons trail Central Michigan, 7-5-2, in that series, and CMU has won four consecutive matches ... last season, (Oct. 23, 2009), in monsoon-like conditions, the host Chippewas scored midway through the first half en route to a 1-0 win ... the Falcons are 1-4-1 in home games against the Chippewas ... in fact, the home team has won only four times in series history.

GOOD THINGS HAPPEN LATE ON SUNDAYS
The Falcons seem to be making a habit of providing 11th-hour heroics in Sunday matches ... over the last three weeks, BGSU has won three one-goal games on Sunday, scoring in the last 12 minutes of each match ... on Sept. 12, sophomore Sarah VonderBrink scored with just 6:26 left to give BG a 2-1 win over Cleveland State ... VonderBrink struck again one week later (Sept. 19), finding the net with 11:54 remaining in what turned out to be a 3-2 win at Indiana State ... last Sunday (Sept. 26), freshman Tracy Togba scored her first collegiate goal with just 8:27 left. giving the Brown and Orange a 1-0 win over Kent State.

THE 89TH MINUTE (A FEW FINAL FALCON NOTES)
• The Falcons are off to a 2-0-0 start in MAC play for the first time since 2006 ... BG has won the first two conference games for only the fourth time in program history ... the Falcons began the MAC schedule with three-straight wins in 2000, Andy Richards' first year in BG ... and, the Brown and Orange won the first two league contests of both the 1999 season and that '06 campaign.

• BGSU has won three consecutive games for the first time in two years ... the Falcons had a three-game winning streak from Oct. 5-12, 2008, against Akron, Ball State and Miami.

• Believe it or not, the Falcons have posted seven consecutive shutouts vs. Kent State ... BGSU has not surrendered a goal against the Golden Flashes in the last 746:42 ... KSU's last goal from scrimmage vs. the Brown and Orange came on Nov. 2, 2004, late in the first half of a MAC Tournament quarterfinal-round match in Kent.

• Two freshmen scored their first collegiate goals last weekend ... Madeline Wideman scored the Falcons' second goal in the win over Buffalo ... and, Tracy Togba notched the winner in BG's 1-0 triumph vs. Kent State.

• In that UB match, Wideman had not only the first goal, but the first three-point game, of her collegiate career ... she now has five points on the season, incoluding three assists.

• The Falcons' four-goal output against Buffalo was the team's first in over a year ... BG's last four-goal game came on Sept. 4, 2009, in a 4-0 victory at Detroit ... BGSU had not scored four goals in a home match in nearly two years, since a 4-0 win over Miami on Oct. 12, 2008.

• After scoring a total of five goals in the first eight games of the season, the Falcons have scored eight goals over the last three games.

• BGSU scored seven goals in a two-game span (Indiana State and Buffalo) for the first time since September of 2008.

• Junior Megan Amann had two assists in the Buffalo game, giving her a team-high four on the year ... Amann now has 17 career assists, tying her for fifth on the school list with Britt Anderson (2002-05) and Samantha Meister (2002-05).

• Sophomore Sarah VonderBrink had an assist vs. Buffalo ... she now has six points this season, tripling her total for all of last season.

• Freshman Alyssa Carmack had her first career point in the UB game, drawing an assist on the first goal of the day.

THE 2010 CAPTAINS
Seniors Alicia Almond and Katie Stephenson are the co-captains of the 2010 women's soccer Falcons.

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