BGSU Battles Bulls, Buckeyes in Four-Game Homestand

Friday, March 27

Bowling Green, Ohio

3 p.m.

Bowling Green State University

Buffalo

Cameron Kaufman & the Falcons return to Meserve Field for the next four games

Photo by: Ashley Blanchard, WMU Athletics

March 26, 2026 | Softball

BGSU Notes BGSU One Day

Falcons Face Buffalo in Three-Game Weekend Series Before Hosting Ohio State Tuesday

By: by Mike Cihon, BGSU Strategic Communications

• The Bowling Green State University softball team begins a four-game homestand with a Mid-American Conference series this weekend. Head coach Michelle Gardner and the Falcons face the University at Buffalo, opening the series with a single game on Friday (March 27) at 3:00 p.m. at Meserve Field.

• Then, the Falcons and Bulls will conclude the three-game set with a Saturday (March 28) doubleheader, beginning at 1:00 p.m.

• BGSU will step outside of conference play on Tuesday (March 31), beginning a busy week with a contest vs. Ohio State. That matchup will begin at 4:00 p.m. at Meserve.

• All four games are scheduled to have a video stream, courtesy of WBGU-TV and BG Falcon Media. The links to each game will be available on YouTube as well as on BGSUFalcons.com. Admission to all home BGSU softball games is free.

THE FALCONS – A QUICK OVERVIEW
• The Falcons are 14-12 on the season, and BGSU is 2-4 in the MAC through two weekends of conference play. The Orange and Brown captured the MAC opener, 1-0, against Central Michigan (March 14) at Meserve Field, before the Chippewas took the final two games of the series by scores of 7-4 and 8-2.

• Last weekend, BGSU pitchers had a combined ERA of just 0.74 in the three-game series at Western Michigan, as the Falcons allowed only one run in each game. BG dropped the first two games by identical 1-0 scores before posting a 7-1 win in Saturday's (March 21) series finale.

• Senior Mackenzie Krafcik, junior Alyvia Roth and sophomore Morgan Beckham each threw a complete game, and each allowed just one run vs. WMU. The trio allowed a combined 16 hits in 19 innings in Kalamazoo, as the Broncos had a team batting average of just .219 on the weekend.

• The Falcons enter the Buffalo series with records of 1-2 at home, 6-6 in true road games and 7-4 in neutral-site contests. BGSU has tripled the road win total for all of '25, having gone 2-19 in such games last spring.

• The Falcons are hitting .268 as a team, with four regulars batting between .296 and .329. Redshirt sophomore Addie Martin leads the way with a .342 batting average. Martin posted the Falcons' first four-hit game of the season, going 4-for-4 with two doubles and a homer in the final game at WMU.

• Junior Taylor Behrendt is hitting .329, while freshman Hannah Simko and junior Cameron Kaufman are hitting .300 and .296, respectively.

• Martin leads the team with eight doubles and eight homers. She also paces the club in RBI (27) and slugging percentage (.763) and is second in on-base pct. (.462) and stolen bases (10 - tied for second).

• Behrendt has a team-leading 27 hits this season, while Martin has 26 and Kaufman and Simko 24 apiece. Simko has a BG-best 13 stolen bases, and Kaufman has scored a team-high 23 runs.

• Senior Katie Hutter is hitting .271. She has walked a team-high 18 times, and leads the Falcons with a .463 OBP.

• Kaufman, Martin, senior Hannah Hunt and junior Peyton Steffes each have started all 26 games to date, while Behrendt has made 25 starts.

• In the circle, Krafcik has appeared in 16 games, starting 13, and has nine complete games in those 13 starts. She also has an 8-5 record with three shutouts, one save and a 2.37 earned-run average.

• Sophomore Madison Wendel has pitched in 10 games, starting eight, while Roth and Beckham have made nine appearances each. Wendel is 1-3 with a 4.50 ERA, while Roth has a 2-3 record and an opponent batting average of just .238. Beckham has allowed opponents to hit only. 250 against her, and is 2-1 with a 3.32 ERA.

• Head coach Michelle Gardner and her assistants, Greg McQuillin and Indya Smith, welcomed back 15 of 19 letterwinners from last year's team, including all nine positional starters and three of the six pitchers who saw action in 2025.

• That 2025 club surpassed the overall and MAC win totals for the previous two years combined. BGSU went 16-36 last spring, after posting a combined record of 15-79 in the 2023 (9-41) and '24 (6-38) campaigns.

• In MAC play, BGSU was 7-19 last year, after going a combined 5-51 in the previous two seasons.

• BGSU had four seniors on last year's roster. Two of those four players did not see action in 2025, and only one of the four players played in any games after March 8.

• At the plate, the players returning in 2026 combined for ...
   • 1,339 of the team's 1,362 at-bats (98.3%) in 2025;
   • 212 of the 219 runs scored (96.8%);
   • 195 of the Falcons' 198 RBI (98.5%); and
   • 360 of the team's 361 total hits (99.7%).

• In the circle, returning Falcons combined to pitch 215 of the 328 1/3 total innings (65.5%), including 134 1/3 of the 167 2/3 innings (80.1%) in MAC action.

• The 2025 Falcons scored 219 runs, the fourth-highest total in program history, and last year's BGSU club also ranked in the top five in school history in runs per game (4.21, fifth); RBI (198, third); walks (153; fifth); batters hit by pitch (32, third); on-base percentage (.350; fifth) and sacrifice flies (13, tie-third).

• Martin was named to the MAC's All-Freshman Team in 2025. She hit 13 homers, the second-highest single-season total in program history. Martin became the first player in program history to hit at least 12 homers and steal at least 12 bases in the same season.

FALCON NOTES
• The Falcons have stolen a total of 59 bases, topping the total for all of last season. BGSU swiped 55 bases last year, in 52 contests. This season, BG is 15th in the nation with 2.19 steals per game.

• BGSU has scored 136 runs in this season's 26 games, a school-record pace of 5.50 runs per game. Currently, the school record is 5.25 runs per game, set by the 1981 team.

• Falcon batters have been hit by pitch 27 times this season, just eight away from the school record (35) set in 2018.

• Junior Taylor Behrendt has reached base in each of her last 14 contests. Senior Katie Hutter has a 13-game reached-base streak entering the UB series.

• The Falcons are 9-4 in games Mackenzie Krafcik has started this season. BGSU is 12-5 when Ashley Chevalier has gotten the start at catcher.

THE OPPONENT / THE SERIES
• Buffalo is 12-17 overall, and the Bulls are 3-3 in MAC play to date. UB is coming off of a doubleheader sweep of Canisius on Wednesday afternoon (March 25). In league action, the Bulls took one of three games in a high-scoring series at Northern Illinois, before winning two of three at home vs. Kent State last weekend. Reagan Terwilliger is batting a team-leading .396, and is one of six starters hitting at least .320. In the circle, Olivia Russ and Genevieve Longsdorf have started 11 and 10 games, respectively. Russ is 5-7 with a 6.23 ERA, while Longsdorf is 4-3 with a 7.00 ERA to date. Chelsea Plimpton is in her first season as head coach after spending last season as an assistant on the UB staff. The 2025 team went 17-33 overall and 10-17 in MAC play.

• The Falcons lead Buffalo, 34-25, in the all-time series, but UB has won the last two meetings. Last season, the Orange and Brown won the opening game of a series in Western New York, 11-3 in six innings (March 14, 2025), but the Bulls bounced back the following day with a pair of wins, 4-3 in eight innings and 10-6. Two years ago, in the last meetings at Meserve Field, UB won a three-game series, with the Falcons picking up a 5-4 win in the middle contest (March 16, 2024). BGSU has gone 16-12 at home, 15-13 on the road and 3-0 at neutral sites vs. the Bulls over the years. More series information can be found on page 15 of these notes.

DOWN THE ROAD
• Following the UB series, the Falcons will host Ohio State on Tuesday (March 31), in a 4:00 p.m. start, before beginning the month of April with five road games.

• The Orange and Brown will head to Northeast Ohio for a Wednesday (April 1) doubleheader with Youngstown State, before taking on Kent State in a three-game weekend series (April 3-4).

FOLLOW THE FALCONS
• For more information on the BGSU softball team, follow the Falcons on Twitter/X (@BGAthletics and @BGSUSoftball) and Instagram (@bgsu_softball), as well as on the web at BGSUFalcons.com.