Falcons Look to Break Several Records as MAC Play Begins

Maddy Eccleston Christine Chiricosta 2010-11 Sampson

The Bowling Green State University tennis team, looking to break a pair of school records, begins Mid-American Conference play with a two home matches this weekend. The Falcons of head coach Penny Dean will host the University of Toledo on Friday afternoon (March 22), before taking on Eastern Michigan University on Saturday (March 23). Both matches are scheduled to begin at 1:00 p.m. at the Perrysburg Tennis Center.

LINKS
BGSU STATS & MATCH-BY-MATCH RESULTS
2012-13 BGSU TENNIS MEDIA GUIDE

Friday's UT match will be televised in the Toledo area on BCSN. For more information, consult the station's web page at BCSN.tv.

BGSU enters the weekend with a record of 11-1 in dual-match play. The Falcons have won 11 consecutive matches since a road loss to then 19th-ranked Notre Dame back on Jan. 18. The 11-match winning streak ties the school record.

Last weekend, the Falcons posted a pair of 5-2 victories, downing Butler at the PTC on Saturday (March 16), before hitting the road and picking up a win against UIC the following day.

In the UIC match, senior Maddy Eccleston captured the 89th doubles victory of her BGSU career, tying that school record. Eccleston has matched the BG mark originally set by Christine Chiricosta, who had 89 doubles wins from 2008-11. Eccleston teamed with Chiricosta for 44 of her 89 victories.

**MADDY ECCLESTON'S CAREER DOUBLES RECORD BY PARTNER**
Katia Babina	2- 0
Katie Brozovich	2- 2
Christine Chiricosta	44-18
Nikki Chiricosta	4- 2
Jessica Easdale	0- 0 ^
Katie Grubb	22- 8
Jade Johnson	10- 4
Emily Reuland	5- 2
TOTAL	89-36
^ won a match by forfeit

BGSU has won 11-straight matches for the third time in program history. The 2005-06 Falcons reeled off an 11-match winning streak from Feb. 11 to March 25. Two years later, BG matched that mark and set a school record for best start to a season, winning the first 11 dual matches from Jan. 20 - March 6, 2008. That Falcon team saw the winning streak snapped with a 4-3 loss on the road against EMU (March 21, 2008), and BG dropped a 4-3 contest to Toledo the following day.

For the current edition of the Falcons, this weekend marks the start of the MAC schedule. BGSU has been picked to finish third in the league's regular-season standings in 2013, according to the preseason coaches poll released by the MAC office earlier this month.

Toledo was picked to place ninth, while EMU was tabbed to finish fourth in the nine-team league.

Last weekend's duals saw the Falcons win five of the six total doubles matches, and BGSU captured four singles contests against both Butler and UIC. Falcon competitors have a combined record of 51-15 in singles and 28-5 in doubles during the team's 11-match winning streak.

The doubles team of juniors Nikki Chiricosta and Emily Reuland captured a pair of matches at the number-one flight last weekend, and that duo has won eight consecutive matches together. At the second flight, Eccleston and fellow senior Katie Grubb also were 2-0 last weekend, and that tandem has won eight of the last nine matches.

On the season, the Chiricosta/Reuland team is 20-6, while the Eccleston/Grubb pairing has gone 15-5.

Seniors Mary Hill and Jade Johnson split their matches at the third doubles flight over the weekend. Hill and Johnson are 6-3 in dual-match play, 7-3 on the season and 16-7 in their respective BGSU careers.

In singles play, Chiricosta won a pair of matches at the second flight over the weekend, and now has won 11 consecutive singles contests. Her last loss came against Notre Dame on Jan. 18. Chiricosta has won 20 of her last 21 overall matches (singles and doubles combined) since a doubles loss on Jan. 19.

Freshman Katie Brozovich picked up two singles wins over the weekend. After playing six-straight matches at the sixth flight, Brozovich won at the fifth flight vs. Butler and at the fourth flight against UIC. Like Chiricosta, Brozovich has captured 11 consecutive singles matches since her last loss back on Jan. 18. Overall, she has won 17 matches in a row since that singles setback.

In her 11-match singles winning streak, Brozovich has won the last 10 outings in straight sets. Only two sets during those 11 matches have seen her opponent win as many as four games. Brozovich won a 6-4 opening set in a win over IPFW, and outlasted UIC's Kathryn Sharples, 7-5, in Sunday's second set.

BGSU's two juniors rank one-two on the team in total wins, as Chiricosta is now 44-12 on the season, while Reuland is 41-15. Grubb and Brozovich each have 34 wins this season, and both players -- like Chiricosta and Reuland -- have won more than two-thirds of their overall matches. Chiricosta has a winning percentage of 78.6% in 2012-13, with Grubb at 73.9% (34-12), Reuland 73.2% and Brozovich 69.4% (34-15).

Freshman Drew Fillis also has won close to 70% of her matches this season. Fillis is 22-10 overall this season to date, good for a winning percentage of 68.8%.

In fact, all eight players on the BGSU roster have at least 22 total wins, and every Falcon is at least three games over .500, with seven of the eight players at least nine games above the break-even mark.

Eccleston has an overall mark of 30-19 this spring, while Johnson is 24-15. In addition to Fillis, Hill has 22 wins as well. Hill, a 2012-13 BGSU co-captain along with Eccleston, is 22-19.

Chiricosta leads the Falcons in singles wins, with 21, while Brozovich (20) and Reuland (18) are close behind. Grubb has 16 singles wins to date.

In doubles, both Chiricosta and Reuland are 23-7, and are 20-6 this season when playing as a tandem. Eccleston is 20-8 in doubles play, with Grubb 18-5, Johnson 18-7 and Fillis 15-5. Every player on the team has at least 13 doubles wins, and all eight Falcons are five or more games over .500.

Reuland has a 10-match doubles winning streak entering the Toledo match. She has played with Chiricosta in eight of those matches and Eccleston in the other two. Eccleston is 10-2 in doubles since the start of dual-match play, and she has won 10 of her last 11 doubles matches.

Eccleston, as mentioned, has tied the school career record for doubles wins. She is second on the BGSU combined career wins list, with a total of 157 victories as a Falcon. Christine Chiricosta holds that BG record, with 178 total wins as a Falcon.

All four BGSU seniors and both Falcon juniors are on the list of the top-30 players in school history in combined career wins. And, all six players are within the top 20 on the school's doubles wins list, while five of the six are among the top-25 all-time Falcons in singles wins. All three lists can be found by clicking the PDF stats link near the top of this page.

Toledo enters Friday's BGSU match with an overall record of 6-7, and the Rockets have been idle since March 7. UT went 2-1 on the team's spring trip to Orlando, Fla., with wins over Nova Southeastern and South Dakota and a loss to James Madison. The Falcons and Rockets have played seven common opponents, with BGSU going a perfect 7-0 and UT 3-4 against those schools. The Falcons and Rockets crossed paths twice in the fall, with UT participating in the BGSU Invitational (Sept. 21-22, 2012) and BG heading to the Rocket Invite several weeks later (Oct. 12-13, 2012). Last season, UT finished 9-13 overall and 2-6 in the MAC, tying for seventh in the conference regular-season standings.

Eastern Michigan is 5-9 on the year, and the Eagles open the MAC schedule at Western Michigan on Friday (March 22) before facing BG in Perrysburg the following day. Eastern blanked Dayton and Oakland, 7-0, in back-to-back matches to end February, before dropping three matches in California from March 5-8. Two of those losses came to nationally-ranked teams in Long Beach State and UC Santa Barbara. A year ago, EMU went 9-15 overall and 5-3 in MAC regular-season play. The Eagles tied for third in the conference standings.

BGSU holds a 25-16 lead over Toledo in the all-time series between the teams, and the Falcons have won the last three meetings. Last season, the Brown and Orange ended the regular season with a 4-3 road win over the Rockets (April 21, 2012). Two years ago, in the last home match vs. UT, the Falcons pulled out a 4-3 win in Perrysburg (April 16, 2011), and BG then blanked the Rockets, 4-0, in the MAC Tournament quarterfinals in Ypsilanti, Mich. (April 29, 2011).

The Falcons trail EMU, 28-13, in that series, but BG won the most recent meeting. The Eagles captured last year's regular-season matchup, 4-3, in Ypsilanti (April 20, 2012), but the Falcons posted a 4-0 win exactly one week later in the quarterfinal round of the MAC Championships. The last home match vs. the Eagles saw the Falcons rally after losing the doubles point to pick up a 4-3 win at the PTC (April 15, 2011). Five of the teams' last six regular-season matchups have ended with a 4-3 score.

Following this weekend's matches, the Falcons will begin the road portion of the conference schedule, heading to the MAC's 'West Coast' to take on Northern Illinois on Friday, March 29. That begins a three-match road swing for BG, as the Brown and Orange will face Akron (April 5) and Buffalo (April 6) during that stretch. After home matches against Ball State (April 12) and Miami (April 13), the Falcons end the regular season on the road vs. WMU (April 20). The MAC Championships will be April 26-28 in Muncie, Ind.

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