Chiricosta, Reuland Earn All-MAC Honors; Eccleston Receives Sportsmanship Award

Nikki Chiricosta Maddy Eccleston Emily Reuland All-MAC

Three Bowling Green State University tennis standouts picked up Mid-American Conference awards Thursday (April 26), in conjunction with the 2012 MAC Championships on the campus of Northern Illinois University.

Sophomore Nikki Chiricosta was named to the All-MAC First Team, while classmate Emily Reuland was voted to the all-league second team. Additionally, junior Maddy Eccleston was the recipient of the conference's Leann Grimes Davidge Sportsmanship Award.

PHOTO GALLERY | MAC Championships Program
BGSU heads to NIU for MAC Championships
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MAC Championships Central | MAC Championships Facebook page

The All-MAC Team and conference specialty awards were announced following Thursday's opening round of action at the league championships in DeKalb, Ill.

Chiricosta and Reuland earn All-MAC recognition for the first time in their respective careers. Eccleston becomes the seventh Falcon to win or share the Leann Grimes Davidge Sportsmanship Award, which is presented to the player who displayed outstanding sportsmanship in MAC competition. No other school has won the sportsmanship award more than four times.

Chiricosta, a native of Avon Lake, Ohio (Avon Lake H.S.), enters the MAC Championships with an overall record of 44-19 this season, having gone 22-9 in singles play and 22-10 in doubles action to date. She ranked second on the team in wins in all three categories. Chiricosta played four singles matches at the top flight and four at the number-two level in MAC action, and had a 6-2 record. Additionally, she teamed with Reuland for a 6-2 conference mark in doubles, playing at the number-one flight in all eight league matches.

Chiricosta heads into the league championships with a five-match winning streak in singles, and was named the MAC Player of the Week on three occasions this season, including Wednesday (April 25). Her total of 44 wins this year ties her for 12th on the BGSU single-season list. Just a sophomore, she already ranks 25th in school history with 97 career wins. Chiricosta picked up her 50th career singles win in Saturday's (April 21) victory at Toledo, moving into a tie for 21st on that list. She has won nearly 70 percent of her matches this season (.698) and almost 72 percent of her career collegiate contests (.719).

Reuland, who hails from Oswego, Ill. (Rosary H.S.), leads the Falcons in all three wins categories this year to date, and has won exactly 75 percent of her matches. Her 48-16 record includes identical 24-8 marks in both singles and doubles. Reuland has played at the third singles flight for nearly the entire season, moving up to the second flight and posting a 2-0 record in back-to-back matches in early April. She posted a 6-2 singles record in MAC play, and teamed with Chiricosta to win six of eight MAC contests at the top flight.

Reuland enters the league championships having won six consecutive singles matches, and her 48 overall wins this year marks the seventh-highest seasonal total in school history. She is tied for sixth with 24 singles wins, and is deadlocked for eighth on the doubles wins list, with 24 this season. In just her second season in the Brown and Orange, Reuland has 88 total victories, the 28th-best total in BG annals. She is tied for 24th all-time with 47 career singles wins.

Eccleston, a native of Toledo, Ohio (St. Ursula Acad.), received the sportsmanship award on her 21st birthday. She has a singles record of 19-13 this season and a doubles mark of 21-10, giving her at least 40 total victories for the third time in as many seasons at BGSU. Eccleston has split time between the top-two flights in singles play, and teamed with fellow junior Katie Grubb at the second doubles level during conference action.

Eccleston is the winningest active Falcon, and is moving up the BGSU career charts. With over a year remaining in her BGSU career, she is tied for 15th in school history with 126 overall wins. Eccleston is 18th in career doubles wins, with 58, and is deadlocked for 11th with 68 singles victories, tying her with former Falcon and current BGSU assistant coach Cindy (Mikolajewski) Yonker. Yonker also won the Leann Grimes Davidge Sportsmanship Award during her career.

Dean Eccleston Chiricosta Reuland photo by Sampson Feb 4 2012

Chiricosta was joined on the All-MAC First Team by the Akron duo of Zara Harutyunyan and Olga Shkundina, along with Miami's Stephanie Danesis, Buffalo's Tanvi Shah and Ball State's Courtney Wild.

Second-team honors went to Reuland, UA's Prang Pantusart, MU's Christiana Raymond, Eastern Michigan's Nino Mebuke and Miriam Westerink and Toledo's Kelsey Anonsen.

Miami's Anca Dumitrescu won the Coach-of-the-Year award, after leading the RedHawks to the conference regular-season title with an 8-0 MAC record. Danesis was named the league's Player of the Year, while UA's Shkundina took home Freshman-of-the-Year honors.

The Leann Grimes Davidge Sportsmanship Award is the result of voting by the MAC women's tennis student-athletes. The other awards all were the result of voting by the conference's nine head coaches.

The Falcons of head coach Penny Dean, the fifth seed for the MAC Championships, will face fourth-seeded EMU in Friday's (April 27) quarterfinal round. That match is scheduled to begin at 10:00 a.m. locally (11:00 a.m. Eastern) at DeKalb High School.

The complete list of All-MAC Team and specialty-award winners follows.

2012 ALL-MAC FIRST TEAM
Nikki Chiricosta, Bowling Green
Stephanie Danesis, Miami
Zara Harutyunyan, Akron
Tanvi Shah, Buffalo
Olga Shkundina, Akron
Courtney Wild, Ball State

2012 ALL-MAC SECOND TEAM
Emily Reuland, Bowling Green
Kelsey Anonsen, Toledo
Nino Mebuke, Eastern Michigan
Prang Pantusart, Akron
Christiana Raymond, Miami
Miriam Westerink, Eastern Michigan

2012 MAC SPECIALTY AWARDS
COACH OF THE YEAR: Anca Dumitrescu, Miami
FRESHMAN OF THE YEAR: Olga Shkundina, Akron
PLAYER OF THE YEAR: Stephanie Danesis, Miami
LEANN GRIMES DAVIDGE SPORTSMANSHIP AWARD: Maddy Eccleston, Bowling Green

BGSU'S LEANN GRIMES DAVIDGE SPORTSMANSHIP AWARD WINNERS
1990 - Nanette Zimmerman
1993 - Sarah Emdin
1995 - Cindy Mikolajewski
2000 - Erika Wasilewski
2003 - Alyson Gabel
2011 - Christine Chiricosta
2012 - Maddy Eccleston

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