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Bowling Green State University Athletics
Bowling Green State University
Case Western Reserve (exhibition)
Falcons Face Two Cleveland Foes This Week
August 19, 2013 | Women's Soccer
BGSU hosts CWRU, heads to CSU
The Bowling Green State University women's soccer team has a pair of matches this week – one that counts and one that does not – against Cleveland foes. The Falcons of head coach Lindsay Basalyga will play the last of three preseason exhibitions Thursday night (Aug. 22), hosting Case Western Reserve University at Cochrane Field. Kickoff is scheduled for 7:00 p.m., and the game is scheduled to be aired by BCSN in the Toledo area. Then, on Sunday afternoon (Aug. 25), the Brown and Orange will head to downtown Cleveland to meet Cleveland State University in the regular-season opener for both teams. That contest is scheduled to begin at 1:00 p.m. at Krenzler Field.
BGSU WEEKLY RELEASE - PDF
CWRU Soccer Web Site | CSU Weekly Release
FREE ADMISSION TO HOME FALCON FUTBOL
Admission for all Falcon men's and women's home matches again this season is free. For those who can't make it to Cochrane Field, live stats are scheduled to be available for each home game via BGSUFalcons.com.
LAST WEEK
The Falcons dropped a pair of exhibitions on the road last week, falling to Wright State, 1-0, on Tuesday night (Sept. 13) before losing a 3-0 decision at Indiana State Saturday afternoon (Sept. 17). At WSU, the Raiders got a 40th-minute goal that held up for the win. The teams played three 30-minute periods.
On Saturday at ISU, the host Sycamores scored a pair of first-half goals off of free kicks, and closed the scoring with a late penalty-kick goal. Head coach Lindsay Basalyga used numerous players in both matches, and all three goalkeepers saw action against both the Raiders and the Sycamores.
ABOUT THE FALCONS
Basalyga and her staff – assistant coach Rhonda Gottschalk, volunteer assistant coach Ahmad Smith and student assistant coach Amanda Nelson – return 11 letterwinners, including eight starters, from a year ago. The 2012 club finished with an overall record of 1-17-1 and a Mid-American Conference mark of 0-10-1. Ten of the Falcons' losses, including six in conference play, came by a single goal.
BGSU's list of returning starters includes the team's two 2013 co-captains, Alyssa Carmack and Jenny Fowler. Carmack was one of just two players to start all 19 matches last fall, playing at a center-back position. Fowler, a fifth-year Falcon, started 17 times in 2012.
Junior Kaylee Draper started every game a year ago, while seniors Kaitlyn Tobin and Madeline Wideman made 18 and 17 starts, respectively. Other returning starters include redshirt junior Kylie Briem, true junior Ashley Garr and sophomore Haley Parkinson. Garr started 13 matches in 2012, while Parkinson was in the starting lineup 12 times in her first year as a Falcon. Briem started 14 of the first 16 matches of the year before suffering an injury in the Akron match on Oct. 14 and missing the remainder of the season.
Junior Sidney Huth led the Brown and Orange with three goals and seven points a year ago, and Wideman had a pair of goals and five total points in 2012. Senior Ivi Casagrande and sophomore Emma Norris round out the returning letterwinners.
Wideman has a career total of 19 points to lead active Falcons. She paces all members of the 2013 team with nine career assists at BGSU. Huth and Wideman are tied for the active career lead with five goals apiece.
BGSU's goalkeeper in the regular-season opener at Cleveland State will be making her collegiate debut, no matter which of her three 'keepers Basalyga chooses. Redshirt freshman Lauren Cadel, the lone returnee among the group, did not see action in a regular-season match last year. The goalkeeping corps also includes true frosh Michelle Denley and Jenna DiTusa.
In addition to Cadel, fourth-year Falcon Kailey Paszko and redshirt freshmen Courtney Hendrix and Lexie Schmidt return to the roster. All three missed the 2012 campaign due to injury.
Denley and DiTusa are two of the nine freshmen on the roster this fall. That list also includes Paige Amodio, Taylor Bucaro, Sabrina Cisneros, Jessica Creech, Taylor Dackin, Haley Malaczewski and Melissa Needham.
THE COACH
Lindsay Basalyga enters her first season at the BGSU helm, but she is certainly no stranger to the MAC or the state of Ohio. Basalyga, a native of Cincinnati, came to BGSU after spending eight seasons as the head coach at Eastern Kentucky University. Prior to starting the EKU program from scratch, she spent just over three years as an assistant at the University of Toledo.
Basalyga was hired at EKU in October of 2004 and was involved in every facet of preparing the program for its first season on the pitch in 2005. That first season, the Colonels finished 10th in the Ohio Valley Conference, but Basalyga's club gradually improved, turning the corner in 2008 with a 5-3 conference record and a number-two seed in the program's first-ever appearance in the OVC Tournament. EKU finished second in the league in both '08 and 2010 and third in 2012.
That 2012 team finished at 10-7-3, posting the first winning record in program history and setting school records for overall wins, conference victories (six), goals, assists, points and shots. In the clasroom, EKU received an NSCAA Team Academic Award after posting a cumulative grade-point average of 3.15.
Basalyga, who was a standout player at the University of Maryland, received her bachelor's degree in 2001 and earned a master's degree from UT. Her parents both are BGSU graduates, and her father, John, was a member of the 1972 BG baseball team that won the program's first-ever MAC Championship. He is the men's soccer coach at Northern Kentucky University.
Complete biographies of Basalyga, as well as each member of the coaching staff, can be found on the web at BGSUFalcons.com.
SCOUTING CWRU
Case Western Reserve returns 18 letterwinners, including nine starters, from a year ago. Head coach Tiffany Crooks and the Spartans reached as high as No. 13 in the NCAA Division III national polls, before finishing the year with an overall record of 8-6-4. Three of the team's top four goal-scorers from last season return, led by Jessie Sabers, who had three game-winning goals among her seven total tallies. In goal, both Cameron Casson and Megan Romelfanger made nine starts in 2012. Thursday marks the Spartans' lone scrimmage of the 2013 season.
A LOOK AT CLEVELAND STATE
Cleveland State returns 15 letterwinners, including eight starters, from last year's squad. Head coach Derrek Falor and the Vikings went 6-11-0 overall and 2-5-0 in Horizon League play. CSU, after splitting a pair of exhibitions last week, hosts Canisius Friday before meeting BG Sunday. The Vikes dropped a 3-2 decision at Buffalo before downing visiting Niagara by a 1-0 count. Vickie Havas returns after leading the team in points (15) and assists (five) and tying for the CSU lead in goals (five) a season ago. Goalkeeper Sarah Wood returns after starting 12 of the team's 17 matches last fall. She had 61 saves and a goals-against average of 2.02 in 2012.
THE SERIES
The Falcons lead Cleveland State, 4-1-0, in the all-time series between the teams, but the Vikings captured the most recent meeting. Last Aug. 19 at Cochrane Field, CSU got a 'Golden Goal' from Allie Sieradzki for a 2-1 win over the Brown and Orange. BGSU is 2-0-0 on the road against the Vikes, with a 5-1 win nine years ago (Oct. 1, 2004) and a 1-0 victory just under two years ago (Sept. 2, 2011). The teams are meeting for the fourth consecutive season after going half a decade without playing one another. BGSU has outscored CSU by a 15-4 count in the five series meetings.
THE 2013 CAPTAINS
Seniors Alyssa Carmack and Jenny Fowler are the co-captains of the 2013 Falcons. Fowler, a fifth-year Falcon, is a team captain for the second-straight year.
UP NEXT FOR THE FALCONS
Following the Cleveland State match, the Falcons will play just one match the next week. BGSU will begin the home portion of the regular-season schedule with a match against Butler University on Saturday, Aug. 31. Kickoff is scheduled for 4:00 p.m. at Cochrane Field. BG then will begin the month of September with three consecutive matches on the road, and the Brown and Orange will play five of the month's six contests away from home. The lone home September match comes on Sept. 22 vs. Evansville.
