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Bowling Green State University Athletics
Bowling Green State University
Eastern Michigan
Falcons Host EMU, Toledo this Weekend
April 13, 2011 | Women's Tennis
BGSU prepares for final home matches of 2010-11 season
The Bowling Green State University tennis team, having played nine of the last 11 dual matches away from home, prepares for the final home weekend of the 2010-11 season ... the Falcons of head coach Penny Dean will welcome a pair of Mid-American Conference neighbors to town, facing Eastern Michigan University on Friday (April 15), then meeting the arch-rival University of Toledo on Saturday afternoon (April 16) ... both matches are scheduled to begin at 1:00 p.m. at Keefe Courts on the BGSU campus, weather permitting ... in the event of inclement weather on one or both days, the match(es) would be moved indoors, to the Perrysburg Tennis Center in Perrysburg, Ohio.
BGSU NOTES & STATS - PDF
SIX NOTES NO SELF-RESPECTING MEDIA MEMBER OR FALCON TENNIS ENTHUSIAST SHOULD BE WITHOUT
• Saturday's Toledo match will mark "Senior Day" for the Falcon tennis program ... BGSU's lone senior on the 2010-11 team, co-captain Christine Chiricosta, will be recognized in ceremonies prior to the start of the match.
• Chiricosta, the winningest player in BGSU tennis history, increased all three of her career records last weekend ... she went 3-1 overall in the Falcons' matches at Western Michigan and UIC, winning both of her doubles matches along with sophomore Maddy Eccleston, and splitting a pair of singles contests ... Chiricosta now has school-record totals of 86 singles wins, 87 doubles victories and 173 total wins ... she has a career winning percentage of 72.4%.
• While Christine Chiricosta is rewriting the career records lists, freshman Nikki Chiricosta is moving up the single-season charts ... the younger Chiricosta leads the Falcons with 47 overall victories this year ... she has a team-best 25-7 singles record, and has gone 22-9 in doubles play ... Nikki Chiricosta's 47 total wins ties her for fourth on the BGSU single-season list, while her 25 singles victories ranks fourth outright on that Falcon seasonal chart.
• With at least four matches remaining, four different Falcons have won at least 40 total matches this season ... last season, only two BGSU players won as many as 40 matches ... Nikki Chiricosta, as mentioned, leads the Falcons with 47 total wins ... Christine Chiricosta has 45 victories this year, while Eccleston and fellow sophomore Mary Hill have 43 combined victories apiece.
• In each of the last few seasons, the EMU-Toledo weekend has been a pivotal one for head coach Penny Dean's team ... two years ago – just like in 2010-11 – the Falcons were coming off road losses to UIC and Western Michigan ... but, BGSU bounced back with home wins over the Rockets and Eagles en route to a fourth-place finish in the MAC ... last year, BG lost narrow 4-3 decisions to both UT and EMU on the road ... those losses potentially meant the difference between the fourth and seventh seed in the MAC Championships.
• The Falcons have won 51 matches since Christine Chiricosta arrived on campus in the fall of 2007 ... the school record for wins in a four-year span is 55, set by the senior class of 2007-08 (Jenna Nussbaum and Andrea Volle) and matched by the following year's class (Libby Harrison, Kelsey Jakupcin and Stefanie Menoff).
ABOUT THE FALCONS
BGSU enters the weekend with a dual-match record of 11-7, and the Falcons are 2-3 in MAC play ... last weekend, BG dropped a pair of tough road matches, falling to Western Michigan, 5-2, on Friday (April 8), before losing a 4-3 decision at UIC ... head coach Penny Dean and Company have records of 3-1 in home matches, 6-6 in away contests and 2-0 in neutral-site matches to date ... all four home contests to date have been played indoors, at the Perrysburg Tennis Center.
Individually, senior co-captain Christine Chiricosta has played all 18 dual matches at the number-one singles flight, and has teamed with sophomore Maddy Eccleston at the top doubles flight ... Chiricosta is 11-7 in dual-match singles play, and has an overall singles mark of 22-9 this year to date.
Eccleston, who played at the fifth flight for most of the non-conference season, has played at the second flight in the last seven duals, including all five MAC matches ... Eccleston has a singles record of 20-11 this year, including a mark of 11-7 in dual-match action.
Freshman Nikki Chiricosta has played the bulk of the duals at the third singles flight ... she is 12-5 at flight number three, and also has a win at the second flight ... she leads the team with an overall singles record of 25-7 this season, and has a BG-best 47 total wins.
Sophomore Mary Hill has played at the fourth singles flight in every match since February ... Hill has a dual-match record of 11-7, including marks of 6-4 at the second flight and 1-0 at the third ... freshman Emily Reuland played the first nine dual matches at the fourth flight, and has played the last nine at the fifth level ... Reuland is 11-7 in dual matches and 20-11 overall ... she has gone 7-2 overall and 4-1 in the MAC since moving to the fifth flight.
Junior Jessica Easdale has drawn the sixth-flight assignment for 14 of this year's 18 dual matches ... Easdale, a co-captain along with Christine Chiricosta, is 6-8 in duals and 13-14 overall ... sophomores Katie Grubb and Jade Johnson have a combined singles record of 12-8 this season to date ... Johnson posted a convincing win at the sixth flight against Youngstown State, and also played at flight six in three of BG's five MAC matches.
In doubles, Christine Chiricosta and Eccleston have played every match at the top flight ... they are 14-4 in duals and 22-8 overall this year, and have won 11 of their last 12 matches ... the two freshmen, Nikki Chiricosta and Reuland, are 6-4 at the second flight in dual-match play, with all 10 of those results coming in non-conference play ... sophomores Grubb and Johnson are 3-4 in second-flight doubles action, and their seven matches together have included each of the five MAC contests to date.
Grubb and Hill combined for a 7-3 mark at the third flight, but Hill has teamed with Nikki Chiricosta in third-flight action in the last eight matches, and the latter duo has posted a record of 7-1 during that time.
Overall this season, the eight players on the BGSU roster have combined for a singles record of 132-71 (65.0%) ... Falcon doubles competitors have teamed for a 66-31 mark (68.0%) this year to date.
BGSU finished the 2009-10 season with an overall record of 12-10 and a MAC mark of 2-6 ... BG tied for sixth place in the final regular-season standings, and the Falcons were the seventh seed for the MAC Championships ... the Falcons fell to second-seeded Akron, 4-1, in the league tourney's quarterfinal round.
CHRISTINE CHIRICOSTA RECORD WATCH
Senior Christine Chiricosta, as mentioned earlier, owns all three BGSU career wins records ... Chiricosta has 86 singles victories, 87 doubles wins and 173 overall triumphs ... she has amassed those totals while playing at the first doubles flight and the first and second singles flights for virtually her entire career.
CHRISTINE CHIRICOSTA ON BGSU CAREER RECORDS LISTS
SINGLES WINS: 86, FIRST
Broke Stefanie Menoff's (2006-09) record of 81 in the Detroit match on Feb. 27
DOUBLES WINS: 87, FIRST
Snapped Jenny Cheung's (1995-98) record of 84 wins on April 2 vs. Ball State
COMBINED WINS: 173, FIRST
Broke Deidee Bissinger's (1997-2000) record of 153 in Jan. 30 match at Butler
DOUBLE YOUR PLEASURE ...
• The Falcons have recorded at least 10 dual-match victories for the ninth consecutive season ... prior to the current streak, the longest string of double-digit win totals was four-straight years, on two prior occasions (1988-92 and 1996-2000).
• Additionally, the Falcons finished the 2009-10 campaign with a winning mark for the sixth-straight season, extending that school record ... that streak breaks the old mark of four consecutive winning seasons (originally set from 1974-75 through 1977-78, and matched from 1996-97 through 1999-2000) ... BG needs just one more victory this season to clinch another winning record.
... DOUBLE YOUR FUN
The Falcons have won the doubles point in 13 of this year's first 18 dual matches ... last season, BG picked up the doubles point in 14 of the 22 duals, including in five of the eight MAC matches ... over the last three-plus years, BGSU has won the doubles point in 56 of 79 matches.
FIRST POINT IS AN IMPORTANT ONE
The Falcons' result in doubles play has been a harbinger of things to come in dual-match action this year ... in 16 of the first 18 duals, the team that won the doubles point went on to win the match ... BGSU has captured the doubles point in 13 of this season's 18 dual matches, and the Falcons have gone on to win 11 of those matches (all but the Akron and UIC match) ... BG's other five losses – to Louisville, Michigan State, Air Force, Miami and Western Michigan – each came after the Falcons lost the doubles point.
THE OPPONENTS / THE SERIES
Eastern Michigan currently has a dual-match record of 10-9, and the Eagles are 3-2 in MAC play ... in conference action, Eastern has defeated Ball State, Northern Illinois and Buffalo, while the Eagles have lost against Miami and Akron ... last weekend, EMU fell to UA, 7-0, but bounced back with a 4-3 victory over UB ... last year, head coach Ryan Ray's team went 8-14 overall and 2-6 in the MAC, tying for sixth in the conference standings ... EMU, obviously, already has topped the overall and MAC win totals for all of last season.
The Falcons trail Eastern Michigan, 27-11, in the all-time series between the teams ... last year, the Eagles picked up a narrow 4-3 win in Ypsilanti (April 10, 2010) ... that snapped a BGSU two-match series winning streak ... in the teams' last meeting in Northwest Ohio, the Falcons posted a 6-1 victory over Eastern (March 28, 2009) ... three of the last four regular-season matches between BGSU and EMU have ended with 4-3 scores.
Toledo has an overall record of 12-7 entering the weekend, and the Rockets will take a 3-2 MAC ledger into a Friday match at Western Michigan ... UT, like Eastern Michigan, has wins against BSU, NIU and UB, and losses vs. MU and UA ... Toledo, like BGSU, has just one senior on the roster ... and, just like at BGSU, that lone senior is the winningest player in program history ... Ashley Frey has 158 combined victories at UT ... coach Tracy Mauntler's club went 12-7 overall and 5-3 in the MAC a year ago.
BGSU leads UT, 22-16, in that series, but the Rockets have won the last two meetings ... last season, Toledo posted a narrow 4-3 victory in the Glass City (April 9, 2010) ... two years ago, UT came to Keefe Courts twice, and the teams split the two matches ... the Falcons won a 4-3 decision in regular-season action (March 27, 2009), but UT downed the Brown and Orange in the MAC Championships several weeks later (April 24, 2009), with that match being held at the 'old' Keefe Courts.
SHE'S THE DEAN
Falcon head coach Penny Dean has had a great deal of success on both sides of the BGSU-UT rivalry, with her teams having won 19-of-27 matches ... Dean spent four years (1984-85 through 1987-88) at the helm of the Rockets, and had a perfect 5-0 record vs. Bowling Green during that time ... since taking the BGSU head-coaching position prior to the 1990-91 season, Dean has guided the Brown and Orange to a 14-8 record against UT.
UP NEXT
Following the EMU and UT matches, the Falcons close the regular season with a trip to the MAC's "West Coast" ... BGSU will face Northern Illinois on Saturday, April 23 ... then, the Brown and Orange will head to Ypsilanti, Mich., for the MAC Championships, which run from April 28 to May 1.
