Falcons Head to the 'Zoo for Saturday Match With No. 5 WMU

FALCONS at #5 WESTERN MICHIGAN – Saturday, Nov. 4
1:00 p.m. | WMU Soccer Complex | Kalamazoo, Mich.
Live Stats: WMUBroncos.com | Twitter: @BGSUmenssoccer
Live Video: ESPN3.com

ON MATCH DAY...
Links to any live audio/video/stats will be available on the men's soccer schedule page right here at BGSUFalcons.com on match day.

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FALCON MEN'S SOCCER LINKS
This Week's BGSU Notes (PDF)
2017 BGSU Men's Soccer Weekly Releases/Notes
The Opponent: WMU Men's Soccer
NIU RECAP: First-Half Explosion Propels Falcons to 3-1 Win
VIDEO: In the Nest: Mwembia
BGSU Photo Galleries *
BGSU Men's Soccer Videos
Falcons Earn USC Team Academic Award
2017 BGSU Men's Soccer: Schedule | Roster | Record Book
Join the Falcon Club Today!
* all sports - choose "men's soccer" in the drop-down link at the top right of the page

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UP NEXT IN FALCON SOCCER
The Bowling Green State University men's soccer team will close the 2017 regular-season schedule with a trip to Kalamazoo, Mich., this weekend. Head coach Eric Nichols and the Falcons will meet Western Michigan University – ranked fifth in the nation – on Saturday (Nov. 4). Kickoff is set for 1:00 p.m. at the WMU Soccer Complex.

THE FALCONS AND THE MAC RACE
• With 80 percent of the conference schedule in the books, the Falcons currently sit in fourth place in the Mid-American Conference standings. The top-four teams in the final regular-season standings will qualify for the MAC Tournament, and BGSU's tourney scenarios are as follows ...

• IF BGSU BEATS OR TIES WESTERN MICHIGAN ON SATURDAY, the Falcons will qualify for the MAC Tournament.

• IF BGSU LOSES TO WMU ON SATURDAY, the Falcons would qualify for the MAC Tournament if West Virginia does not beat SIUE.

• A BG win would give the Falcons seven points, and would ensure that WVU could not catch BG in the standings. A win would give the Falcons at least the fourth seed, and BGSU could earn the third seed if SIUE lost or tied against WVU.

• If the Falcons and WMU play to a draw, BG clinches the fourth seed. Even if WVU beats SIUE, and both BG and WVU finish with five points, the Falcons would win the tiebreaker by virtue of the draw vs. WMU.

• WMU has already clinched at least a tie for the MAC regular-season crown, and the Broncos have clinched the league tournament's number-one seed and the right to host the tourney on Nov. 10-12.

• Here are the current MAC standings ...
MAC STANDINGS & REMAINING SCHEDULE
Team W-L-T Pts.  Sat...
1. Western Michigan 4-0-0 12 v BGSU
2. Akron   3-1-0   9 v NIU
3. SIUE 2-2-0 6 v WVU
4. Bowling Green 1-2-1 4 @WMU
5. West Virginia 0-2-2 2 @SIUE
6. Northern Illinois  0-3-1 1 @Akron
teams earn 3 pts for a win, 1 for a tie – complete list of MAC results on page 8 of the PDF

TOUGH CROWD
• Saturday's Western Michigan match will be the fifth time this season that the Falcons have faced a team ranked in the top 25 in the nation, and it will be BG's third matchup against a top-10 team. All five of those matches have been (or will be) played on the road.

• BGSU has dropped each of the first four such contests, all by a single goal. The Falcons fell by 2-1 scores against then No. 1 Notre Dame and No. 19 Akron, and the Brown and Orange lost 1-0 decisions against a pair of Big Ten Conference foes, No. 6 Michigan State and No. 25 Ohio State. Each of the latter two matches was decided by a second-half penalty kick.

FOLLOW THE FALCONS
• If you can't make it to Kalamazoo on Saturday, live stats are scheduled to be available via WMUBroncos.com, and as of Friday morning, the match is also tentatively scheduled to be streamed via ESPN3.com and/or WMUBroncos.com.

• Additionally, twitter updates for all men's soccer action, both home and away, can be found at @BGSUmenssoccer.

• As always, all of the pertinent information and links re: Falcon soccer coverage can be found on the web at BGSUFalcons.com on the day of the match.

A FEW THINGS YOU MIGHT WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THE FALCONS
• BGSU enters the Western Michigan match with an overall record of 7-8-1, and the Falcons are 1-2-1 in MAC play. BG bounced back from a pair of 2-1 setbacks with a 3-1 victory over Northern Illinois at Cochrane Stadium on Saturday (Oct. 28).

• After battling West Virginia to a scoreless draw at Cochrane (Oct. 14), the Falcons headed to Akron and took the No. 19 Zips to overtime the following weekend (Oct. 21). With BG playing two men down, sophomore Charlie Maciejewski scored the tying goal with under two minutes remaining in regulation, but the Zips would score the golden goal against the shorthanded Falcons early in the extra session.

• BG rallied from an early deficit with three goals in just over 17 minutes vs. NIU. Senior Alexis Souahy scored what proved to be the winning goal, while junior Tate Robertson and sophomore Chris Brennan also found the back of the net.

• The Falcons started the season with five-straight victories. BG posted multi-goal wins – all by shutout – over IUPUI, Cleveland State, Drexel, Penn and Western Illinois, but then dropped the next four matches before downing Duquesne, 1-0 in OT, at Cochrane.

• The Falcons spent a week ranked No. 19 in the United Soccer Coaches poll, and three of BGSU's losses during the four-game streak came by a goal on the road to teams also ranked in the top-25 (No. 1 Notre Dame, No. 6 Michigan State and No. 25 Ohio State).

• BG bounced back from the narrow loss at OSU by topping Duquesne, but the Falcons then lost, 3-1, at SIUE in the conference opener before dropping a 2-0 decision at Wright State.

• Brennan leads the Falcons with 14 points on the year, including a team-best five goals. And, the Copley, Ohio, native is second on the club with four assists.

• Robertson has 11 points, while fellow junior Moe Mustafa has nine. Mustafa is second on the Falcons with four goals, while Robertson tops the team with seven assists on the year to date.

• Souahy has eight points and sophomore Robert Miller III six. Both players have three goals, and all three of Miller's markers have been game winners.

• Either Brennan or Robertson (or both) have been involved in the scoring of 15 of BGSU's 20 goals this fall.

• Freshman Chris Sullivan has five points and Maciejewski three. Maciejewski has a goal and an assist, while junior Peter Pugliese and freshman Zach Buescher each have three assists.

• BGSU is 6-0-0 this season when scoring two or more goals. The Falcons are 20-0-2 in such matches since the start of the 2015 season and 50-4-6 in the Nichols Era.

• Sophomore goalkeeper Anthony Mwembia has seven shutouts this season, and has kept 15 clean sheets in 34 career matches. He has 62 saves and a goals-against average of 1.04 on the year.

• Five Falcons have started all 16 matches to date. That group includes Buescher, Mwembia, Robertson, Souahy and senior Brad Macomber. Brennan has made 15 starts while Peter Pugliese has started 14 games and junior Dominic Grida and sophomore Tom Wrobel 13 apiece. A total of 17 players have started at least one contest this fall.

• Macomber, Mwembia and Souahy each have been on the pitch for all 1471-plus minutes this season to date.

• Both Mwembia and Robertson were listed in the Top Drawer Soccer Preseason Conference Top-20 rankings. Mwembia was listed as the 10th-ranked player in the MAC, while Robertson was ranked 12th in the league.

• BGSU went two decades (1995 to 2015) without going 4-0 to start the season, but the Falcons now have done so in three-straight years. Both the 2015 and '17 teams started 5-0 and broke into the national rankings, while BG began 4-0 in '16.

SOME BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON THE BROWN AND ORANGE FOR YOUR BROADCAST, WEB STREAM, ARTICLE OR MYSPACE PAGE
• The 2017 season marks the 53rd year of BGSU men's soccer. Legendary coach Mickey Cochrane initiated varsity programs in both soccer and lacrosse at BG in 1965, after serving as club coach of both sports at the University the previous year. Cochrane can still be found in attendance at the field that bears his name for many BGSU men's and women's soccer matches.

• Eric Nichols, now in his ninth season at BG, is just the fifth coach in the illustrious history of Falcon men's soccer. Cochrane (1965-77), Gary Palmisano (1978-92, 1994), Mel Mahler (1993, 1995-2003) and Fred Thompson (2004-08) are the only other individuals to have coached the BGSU men's soccer program.

• Nichols – the 2016 Mid-American Conference Coach of the Year – enters the WMU match with a record of 69-74-25 at BG, The Falcons, after going 3-12-3 in his first year, have a winning record since the start of the 2010 campaign.

• Nichols and the Falcons had an overall record of 9-6-4 in 2016, and BGSU finished MAC regular-season play with a 2-0-3 league ledger. BG finished second in the conference, the program's best showing since the 2002 season, and the Falcons were undefeated at Cochrane Stadium for the first time since 1996.

• The Falcons have a record of 39-29-7 (.567) since the beginning of the 2014 season. The '14 team went 14-6-1, posting the program's most wins in nearly two decades (since 1997), and advanced to the MAC Tournament's championship match for the first time since 2003. The 2015 club finished 9-9-1, marking only the second time since 2000 that BGSU had won as many as nine games in a season. And, obviously, 2016 was the third time, as BG again posted nine victories.

• BGSU ended the 2016 regular season as the only team without a loss in MAC play. The Falcons – picked to finish fifth in the preseason poll – finished second in the league standings, and went unbeaten in the MAC for the first time since 1996.

• Nichols and his staff – assistant coaches Eric Reed and Zach Mason – welcomed back a total of 13 letterwinners, including seven starters, from last year's team.

• Anthony Mwembia was an All-MAC First-Team selection in his freshman campaign, while Tate Robertson earned All-MAC Second-Team honors in 2016.

• Mwembia is ranked third among all active NCAA Division-I goalkeepers in career saves percentage (.808).

A QUARTET OF SENIORS NAMED TEAM CAPTAINS
A quartet of seniors are serving as captains for the 2017 Falcons. That group is comprised of Prayag Jina, Brad Macomber, Keaton Reynolds and Alexis Souahy.

FALCONS EARN USC ACADEMIC AWARD
For the seventh time in the last eight years, Bowling Green has received the United Soccer Coaches Team Academic Award. The USC (formerly NSCAA) Team Academic Award is given to soccer programs that have achieved a minimum team grade-point average of 3.0 on a 4.0 scale. The Falcons had a team GPA of 3.13 in the 2016-17 academic year.

SCOUTING WMU
Western Michigan is 14-2-1 this season, and the Broncos are a perfect 4-0-0 in MAC matches entering Saturday's contest vs. BGSU. Western is ranked fifth in the nation in two polls, including the United Soccer Coaches rankings, and the Broncos are seventh or higher in all four polls. WMU has clinched at least a tie for the MAC regular-season crown, along with the top seed for the MAC Tournament. The Broncos began the year with a 9-0-1 mark before dropping back-to-back contests vs. Portland and Michigan State. But, Western has reeled off five-straight shutout wins since that Oct. 4 loss to the Spartans. WMU is 8-1-0 at home and 6-1-1 on the road. Brandon Bye leads the Broncos with 11 goals and 27 points, while Jay McIntosh has 18 points on five goals and a team-leading eight assists. In goal, Drew Shepherd has started 16 of the 17 matches, and has 11 shutouts, 26 saves and a GAA of just 0.64. Last year, head coach Chad Wiseman's squad finished with a 9-6-4 overall record and a MAC ledger of 1-1-3.

THE SERIES
BGSU leads Western Michigan, 28-16-4, in the all-time series between the teams. Last year, the Falcons and Broncos played to a 1-1 draw at Cochrane, with Chris Brennan scoring BG's goal. Two years ago, in the last meeting in Kalamazoo, the Broncos came away with a 2-1 victory. BGSU went 24-3-2 vs. Western in the first 29 meetings, but the Broncos are 13-4-2 vs. the Falcons since that time. BG is 16-4-3 at home, 11-11-1 on the road and 1-1-0 in neutral-site meetings with the Broncos through the years.

UP NEXT FOR THE FALCONS
Following Saturday's matches around the conference, the top four teams in the standings will meet in Kalamazoo for the MAC Tournament's semifinal round on Friday, Nov. 10. The two survivors will square off two days later (Nov. 12), with the winner earning the MAC's automatic bid to the NCAA Championships.

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