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Bowling Green State University Athletics
Bowling Green State University
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Western Michigan
Falcons Return to the Road for Two Tough Matches
April 07, 2011 | Women's Tennis
BGSU takes on WMU, UIC this weekend
The Bowling Green State University tennis team, after playing at home for the first time in nearly two months, heads back out on the road this weekend ... the Falcons of head coach Penny Dean travel to Kalamazoo for a Friday (April 8) match vs. perennial Mid-American Conference power Western Michigan University ... then, the Brown and Orange will head to the Windy City for a non-league matchup against UIC on Saturday morning (April 9) ... Friday's match in Kalamazoo begins at 1:00 p.m., while Saturday's UIC contest is scheduled to start at 11:00 a.m. CT (noon Eastern).
BGSU NOTES & STATS - PDF
THREE NOTES NO SELF-RESPECTING MEDIA MEMBER OR FALCON TENNIS ENTHUSIAST SHOULD BE WITHOUT
• Falcon senior Christine Chiricosta already owned two BGSU career wins records heading into last weekend ... and, in Saturday's (April 2) win over Ball State, she picked up a third ... Chiricosta has 85 singles victories and 170 overall wins, good for first place on both of those BGSU career lists ... she teamed up with sophomore Maddy Eccleston for a doubles victory in the BSU match, the 85th doubles win of her Falcon career ... Chiricosta has broken the school record for doubles wins originally set by Jenny Cheung (1995-98).
• The Falcons have won 51 matches since Chiricosta, the lone senior on the BGSU roster in 2010-11, 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).
• With at least six 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 ... freshman Nikki Chiricosta leads the Falcons with 44 total wins ... Christine Chiricosta and sophomore Mary Hill have 42 combined victories apiece, while Eccleston has 41.
ABOUT THE FALCONS
BGSU enters the weekend with a dual-match record of 11-5, and the Falcons are 2-2 in MAC play ... last weekend, BG split a pair of matches at the Perrysburg Tennis Center, falling to defending MAC champion Miami, 5-2, on Friday (April 1), before bouncing back with a 6-1 win over Ball State the following afternoon (April 2) ... head coach Penny Dean's team has records of 3-1 in home matches, 6-4 in away contests and 2-0 in neutral-site matches to date ... all four home contests have been played indoors, at the PTC.
Individually, senior co-captain Christine Chiricosta has played all 16 dual matches at the number-one singles flight, and has teamed with sophomore Maddy Eccleston at the top doubles flight ... Chiricosta is 10-6 in dual-match singles play, and has an overall singles mark of 21-8 this year to date.
Sophomore Mary Hill has played at the second singles flight in 10 of the 16 duals ... she is 6-4 in those 10 matches, 11-5 in all dual matches and 20-9 in all singles matches this season ... Hill has played at the fourth flight in the last five duals.
Freshmen Nikki Chiricosta and Emily Reuland have played the bulk of the duals at the third and fourth singles flights, respectively ... Chiricosta is 10-5 at flight number three, and also has a win at the second flight ... she leads the team with an overall singles record of 23-7 this season ... Reuland is 10-6 in dual matches and 19-10 overall ... she has played at the fifth flight in the last seven contests, going 6-1 in that time.
Eccleston, who played at the fifth flight for most of the year, has played at the second flight in the last five duals ... Eccleston has a singles record of 20-9 this year, including a mark of 11-5 in dual-match action.
Junior Jessica Easdale, a co-captain along with Christine Chiricosta, has played at the sixth flight for all but four matches this spring ... Easdale is 6-6 in duals and 13-12 overall ... sophomores Katie Grubb and Jade Johnson have a combined singles record of 12-7 this season to date ... Johnson jumped into the lineup for the YSU match, posting a convincing win at the sixth flight, and also played at the sixth flight in the first three MAC matches.
In doubles, Christine Chiricosta and Eccleston have played every match at the top flight ... they are 12-4 in duals and 20-8 this year, and have won nine of their last 10 matches ... the two freshmen, Nikki Chiricosta and Reuland, are 6-4 at the second flight in dual-match play, but all 10 of those results came in non-conference play ... sophomores Grubb and Johnson are 3-3 in second-flight doubles action, and their six matches together have included each of the four 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 six matches, and the latter duo has been unbeaten during that time.
Overall this season, the eight players on the BGSU roster have combined for a singles record of 128-62 (67.4%) ... Falcon doubles competitors have combined for a 63-28 mark (69.2%) 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, now owns all three BGSU career wins records ... Chiricosta has 85 singles victories, 85 doubles wins and 170 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 ... the complete lists of BGSU single-season and career records can be found on page 7 of the PDF version of these notes, which is just a click away at the top of the page.
CHRISTINE CHIRICOSTA ON BGSU CAREER RECORDS LISTS
SINGLES WINS: 85, FIRST
Broke Stefanie Menoff's record of 81 in the Detroit match on Feb. 27
DOUBLES WINS: 85, FIRST
Snapped Jenny Cheung's (1995-98) record of 84 wins on Saturday (April 2) vs. BSU
COMBINED WINS: 170, FIRST
Broke Deidee Bissinger's 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 12 of this year's first 16 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 55 of 77 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 15 of the first 16 duals, the team that won the doubles point went on to win the match ... BGSU has captured the doubles point in 12 of this season's 16 dual matches, and the Falcons have gone on to win 11 of those matches (all but the Akron match) ... BG's other four losses – to Louisville, Michigan State, Air Force and Miami – each came after the Falcons lost the doubles point.
THE OPPONENTS / THE SERIES
Western Michigan currently has a dual-match record of 9-10 ... the Broncos are 2-2 in MAC play, with the same outcomes vs. the same four conference opponents as the Falcons – wins over Ball State and Buffalo, and losses to Akron and Miami ... most recently, head coach Betsy Kuhle's club lost, 6-1, to the RedHawks in a rematch of the 2010 MAC Championship ... last year, WMU went 16-11 overall and 6-2 in the MAC, finishing third in the conference standings.
The Falcons trail Western Michigan, 36-0, in the all-time series between the teams ... last year, the Broncos picked up a 5-2 win at Keefe Courts (April 2, 2010) ... that match marked the second time in three seasons, but only the second time since 1998-99, that the Falcons posted as many as two points vs. Western ... in the last dual match in Kalamazoo, WMU picked up a 6-1 win two seasons ago (March 21, 2009).
UIC enters the BGSU match with an overall mark of 12-4 ... the Flames are a perfect 5-0 in Horizon League play ... head coach Shannon Tully's team posted wins at Youngstown State and Cleveland State last weekend ... the Flames have won 128 consecutive matches vs. Horizon League foes, the longest current conference-only win streak in Division-I sports ... junior Mariya Kovaleva has been named the Horizon League Player of the Year in each of her first two seasons at the school ... last year, the Flames went 20-4 overall and 10-0 in HL play, and won the league's regular-season and tournament crowns for the ninth consecutive season.
BGSU leads UIC, 10-7, in that series, but the Flames have won the last two meetings ... last season, UIC came to the Perrysburg Tennis Center and downed the Falcons by a 6-1 count (Feb. 21, 2010) ... two years ago, in the Windy City, the Flames picked up a 5-2 victory (March 20, 2009), breaking a five-match winning streak for the Brown and Orange ... the teams have met in each of the last 14 seasons.
UP NEXT
The Falcons return home next weekend, facing Eastern Michigan in Friday (April 15) action and Toledo on Saturday (April 16) ... both duals are scheduled to begin at 1:00 p.m. at Keefe Courts.
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