Gymnastics Day of Hope

I was able to catch an interview with Senior Megan Chronister and make a short video of the BGSU Gymnastics Team's All-Cancer Awareness Day.

Men's Golf Finishes Ninth in MAC

The school year is coming to an end, meaning the athletic season is wrapping up as well. The Men’s Golf team competed in the 2010 Mac Championships this weekend.

With mediocre weather making the competition less than desirable, Bowling Green completed Sunday's 18 holes with a composite score of 314, over 26 and finished their season in ninth place… of nine teams.

Kent State University took first with their two-under-par 1150, 22 shots over Eastern Michigan. BGSU fell 10 shots behind Ball State and 13 behind Toledo, who came in seventh on Sunday.

The season had been a rollercoaster for the guys, starting off strong, ending up in the top- five tournament standings and then coming in last place of the tournament. Four seniors will be leaving the team.

Senior Matt Schneider topped off his career with a two-over-par 74 with his tournament total at 302. Schneider has earned a top-20 finish in all four MAC Championships as a Falcon. Schneider was named 2nd Team All-MAC.

John Powers also played the full 36 rounds in 2009-10 and averaged 75.36 in that span. For his career, Powers leaves BGSU with an average of 75.17 over 123 rounds.

Scott Blackburn played in two tournaments in 2009-10. In his six rounds, Blackburn averaged 78.83, the best average since his freshman year. His senior year action also brought his career average under 80, as Blackburn leaves BGSU after shooting 79.76 over 29 rounds.

Chad Walker completed nine rounds this season for an average of 78.78. Those results improved Walker's career average to a solid 79.13 over 30 rounds.

*bgsufalcons.com

Women's Basketball Awards

Their season is over, but their success cannot be stopped. The BGSU Women’s Basketball team had an excellent season, and excellent may or may not be an understatement. Not only was this season such an success, the four-year seniors experienced an 113-24 record, a post season WNIT and two NCAA Tournament appearances with the Falcons.

Saturday the team gathered on campus for their annual banquet where they recognized each player for a different award. And I don’t think the results will shock you…

Player of the Year went to Lauren Prochaska

Falcon Award went to Maggie Hennegan

Power Player of the Year went to Tara Breske

Playmaker of the Year went to Tracy Pontius

Impact Player of the Year went to Tamika Nurse

Most Improved Player went to Kelly Zuercher

Scholar-Athletes of the Year went to Laura Bugher & Jen Uhl

Prochaska has been named Player of the Year twice consecutively. She ended up averaging 17.9 points a game this last season, scoring a new school-record 609 points. Prochaska also set a single-season record with 92 three-point shots made. That is the second highest total in Mid-American Conference History. Prochaska was also named team captain for the 2010-2011 season next Fall.

Team captain Breske has held Power Player of the Year for three years in a row. Ending her career with 916 points, 561 rebounds and 104 blocked shots Breske was an all-around player for the Falcons.

Nurse, as a new addition to the team a year ago, started all 34 games this past season and led the team in assists. Nurse also came in third on scoring for the orange and brown.

BGSU Falcon Jerseys to be Recognized

Bowling Green Athletics is asking students and alumni to start nominating former Falcon athletes’ jersey numbers. The jerseys will not be retired, just recognized. The criteria are very specific. The nominee must already be a member of the BGSU Athletics Hall of Fame and has been out of BGS for a minimum of 10 years. Among those requirements, the candidate must have outstanding athletics credentials, either by National award recognition, All-American status or a conference player-of-the-year status.

“Bowling Green has a long and distinguished athletic history,” Greg Christopher, Director of Athletics, said for the BGSU athletics website. “While we already recognize individuals who have excelled through the Athletics Hall of Fame, we wanted to take it another step forward. Retiring the jerseys of our legends is a great way to honor and recognize Falcon greats.”

I did my research and looked to see which former Falcons have already had their numbers recognized by the school. I found four that had their jerseys retired.

#29 Paul Miles (Football)
#9 George McPhee ‘82 (Hockey)
#19 Nelson Emerson, Brian Holzinger (Hockey)
#42 Nate Thurmond ‘63 (Men’s Basketball)


George McPhee- At BGSU McPhee was a four-year letter winner and won the Hobey Baker Award in 1982, which is given to the top collegiate hockey player. After being a Falcon, McPhee went on to play with the New York Rangers and the New Jersey Devils. Seven years in the NHL led McPhee to obtain his law degree from Rutgers and since 1997, McPhee is the General Manager of the Washington Capitals.


Nate Thurmond – At 6’10” Thurmond was recognized as one of the best defensive players to ever come through BGSU. After being named an NCAA Basketball All-American, Thurmond went on to have a 14-year career in the NBA after being drafted to the San Francisco Warriors. His number #42 was retired by BGSU, the Golden State Warriors and the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Bring Back the Glory

Things are looking up for the BGSU Hockey team as they just acquired a new head coach… and he came from one of the best hockey programs around; Miami University.
Chris Bergeron was named BGSU’s seventh head coach of Hockey on Sunday April 12, 2010.Bergeron comes from a ten year assistant coaching job at Miami.

Bergeron is just in time for the Bring Back the Glory Campaign. This campaign is set up to do just what it says; bring back the glory of hockey to BGSU. For all students that attend BGSU, it is known that hockey has such a rich tradition here, but with a losing team the tradition has been fading.

The campaign is raising money to upgrade the facilities, add more scholarships and put more money into the faculty. An estimated $4 million is going into the ice arena alone to upgrade the compressors, chillers and infrastructure.

Bergeron made a comment to the BGSU’s athletic director stating, “I’m very excited to be a part of putting Bowling Green back where it belongs in the hockey world. My family and I are looking forward to becoming part of the Bowling Green community. What excites me the most, though, is seeing how hungry everyone is to make Bowling Green hockey successful again -- from Dr. Cartwright to Greg Christopher to everyone I talked to during the interview process.”

It’s good to see that he understands the Bowling Green fans are literally hungry for a decent hockey team. My only hope is that he can keep the rich tradition alive for more seasons to come.

Large Ben Causing Trouble

I know he didn’t play here… nor is he liked here (at least by me and all of Cleveland) I really, really want to comment on the creep named Big Ben. This is relevant because he’s from around here, Findlay to be specific. And I want to throw out on the table, from the people that knew him in high school, let’s just say he was not their favorite person.

First and foremost, dude’s a creep. He let his position go straight to his head and everyone can totally tell. If you haven’t heard (because you’re living in a box or something) Ben Roethlisberger was accused of sexually assaulting a college female in Georgia. This is not the first time these sorts of accusations have arrived, and I think that should tell us something.

It has recently been confirmed that Roethlisberger will not be criminally charged with anything having to do with the allegations, which is bull. But the NFL commissioner isn’t going to let him off that easy. Tuesday morning Large Ben was in the comish’s office discussing the situation and whether or not there will be a punishment on behalf of the NFL.

Further than that, if the commissioner doesn’t discipline Ben, the Steelers still have the right to. According to those in Findlay and Pittsburg, Roethlisberger’s stuff is just sitting on the shelves. A lot of people are disappointed in him and want to let him know that he really needs to get his stuff together.

BGSU Motorsports Club

I had the chance to get out and talk with a few of the guys from the Motorsports club on Tuesday. I intern at Fox Toledo and one of the sports guys was really interested in what this club got into. He asked me to come out and help him shoot a story on it, and it was very amusing.

These are not small, little kids getting into go-carts. These are almost fully grown men who build and rebuild go-carts to race competitively with. I wish I could have taken the video from Fox because you almost have to see it to believe it.

This is a club team, so they don’t receive any funding for their carts and all they can do is rely on sponsorship from those in the area. Certain cars have certain sponsors and amongst that list are Argo-Hytos, Lifeformations and South Side 6.

The mission statement of this club is “to develop and promote clean and renewable energy technologies in a motorsports setting” and the main goals are to “bring motorsports competition to the BGSU, develop, implement, and showcase clean energy systems and encourage fun, safe, and competitive competition.”

From what I gathered, this team has nine cars that are running and put into competition. They have an advisor, Anthony Palumbo and a co-ed team. They kept asking me to join because they need more girls!

This club seems to have a lot of fun with what they do and they are always looking for more drivers and supporters. If you’re at all interested, check out their website at http://www.bgsu.edu/studentlife/organizations/motorsports/ms_home.html

Mid-American Conference Map

For those who need to brush up before next season, I put together a map of the schools within the MAC conference. This will help in trying to find the place... or to just know who we're up against.


View MAC Conference in a larger map

A Familiar Name on SI.com

New England Patriot’s wide receiver Wes Walker has some pull on Sports Illustrated’s online community. While looking through his 2010 Watch List, I happened to stumble upon a familiar name…

“9. Freddie Barnes, WR, Bowling Green -- Barnes is another prospect overlooked by those who determine the combine invite list, but he had a solid week at the East-West Shrine Game and was a proven collegiate performer, with a mind-boggling, NCAA-record setting 155 catches in 2009. But his issue is speed. He didn't run well at his pro day, posting times in the 4.6-4.7 range, and is more of a possession-type receiver than home run threat. "He hasn't run well, but he was so productive you can't ignore him,'' one scout said."He's very instinctive, and even at the tail end of the draft, I can see him doing something in the league.''”

Walker played for Texas Tech but was undrafted in 2004. He ended up being added to the San Diego Chargers’ roster for the 2004 season and has been a successful professional football player since. After one season with the Chargers, Walker moved on to play two seasons with the Miami Dolphins. Finally walker started with the Patriots in 2007 and is currently still there.

Barnes was disappointed with his performance at the 2010 Combine at the Doyt, saying his legs felt heavy and he had been performing a lot better in doors. But he stays positive that the scout will take into account his performances during the season, under the pressure.

Women's Softball Couldn't Win the Golden Egg on Easter

Easter Sunday, the Falcons played host to Eastern Michigan University… and looking at the stats you would think the girls would have gone home happy.

The Falcons out-hit the Eagles 6-3, freshman Paige Berger smashed her seventh career homer while scoring both runs and the defense held the Eagles scoreless for five of the seven innings. So why did the score of 5-2 add an “L” to the Falcon’s column?

After a slow start, the top of the third was started off by three runs from the Eagles. BG was unable to answer those runs offensively but they were able to hold off more runs from EMU until the fifth inning, ending in a 5-0 score with the Eagles on top.

Due to two errors, too close together; Berger was able to reach home… twice. First off a wild pitch to Susan Sontag and then an error on the shortstop from a hit off Zada Lines, Berger was able to score both the runs.

Rootstown native, Paige Berger is only a freshman and is already making her mark on the Falcons’ softball team. With the best batting average on the team at .306, she has seven homeruns, fourteen RBI’s and a recorded fifteen hits.

After the weekend, the Bowling Green State University women’s softball team is currently 6-12 overall, and tied at two in the MAC.

The Bowling Green Falcons will be back in competition when they travel to take on the Irish at Notre Dame Wednesday, April 7th. The first pitch is at 5pm.

BGSU Wrestling Taking a Major Hit

Title Nine was a huge leap for women athletes in the sixties and many thought it was an improvement within the sports world. But what was supposed to add more competition to athletics all around has actually dropped the competition level on the men’s side. Wrestling is one sport that has felt the aftershock of Title Nine in a very negative way.
Title Nine calls for the same amount of money to be distributed between men's and women's athletics. Because BGSU has a decent football program, more money is spent on that team and less funds are available for other teams. Wrestling is not the only team at BGSU that has seen their downfall due to the lack of funds.
Within the past thirty years, over three hundred collegiate wrestling programs have been dropped due to the title, and it hasn’t stopped there. On BGSU’s campus, we still have a wrestling team but it isn’t considered varsity so they receive zero money from the University. The Bowling Green State University wrestling team used to be a well established one, but now it’s all pay-to-play and it’s all because of Title Nine.
Fifteen wrestlers at the university pay around three hundred dollars just to compete. And if they make it far enough, another five thousand dollars is tacked on for Nationals. But these guys have a hard time relying on the scheduling because of Title Nine. So many schools have lost their wrestling programs; matches are dropped constantly due to money issues.
Senior and President of the team Josh Paulis had a hard time putting into words how he felt about the issue, “Yeah it’s frustrating, it really is. But I know, me personally, I can’t do much about it.”
The team suffers greatly because of the lack of funds coming their way. The guys don’t even have a place to practice on campus, so they can be found behind Bowling Green High School in a small, detached building practicing every night from 8to 10 p.m.
This has become more of a problem than anything, and those who live and breathe wrestling are looking to change it. Facebook has even been utilized to bring more awareness about the issue. Saving Wrestling is a page dedicated for an attempt at saving collegiate wrestling programs from going under due to the lack of funds giving by the schools.
Individually, a wrestler may not be able to change the title. But a large amount of people fighting for the same cause just may. “What we’re gunna do is we’re gunna establish our program here as best we can and try to get as many All-Americans as we can. We’ve had one so far… so we can establish ourselves and hopefully the University changes their minds and tries to gets us. But as far as Title Nine goes, I know me personally, I can’t work any angles over that,” says Paulis.

Fan Fun With The Falcons

Women's Tennis Plays Host to Duquesne

Women’s Tennis is scheduled to play host to Duquesne University tonight at 7 p.m. at the Perrysburg Tennis Center. BGSU is currently 9-3 in dual matches with Junior Christine Chircosta and Freshman Maddy Eccleston coming off four wins this past week.
Sophomore Jessica Easdale was also perfect on the trip to Florida coming home with a 3-0 record in singles play.
Seniors Katia Babina and Samantha Kintzel each picked up three victories on the trip as well. So overall, the Falcons worked it in Florida and hope to keep that atmosphere and feeling for tonight’s matchup.
The team was in Orlando this past week basking in the sun and victories. The Falcons downed South Dakota (7-0; March 9) and Temple (5-2; March 10) during the team's spring trip.
Duquesne comes to Perrysburg with an overall 5-6 record, winning two straight matches their last time out. A victory over a ranked Coastal Carolina brings an ego to the courts tonight.
Overall, the Falcons lead Duquesne 4-0.
After this weekend activities, the girls will hit the road for eight consecutive MAC regular-season contests, starting at Ball State on March 26th, Miami on the 27th.
The Falcons home opener is scheduled for April 2nd against Western Michigan.

BGSU Baseball Travels to Kentucky

The women’s basketball team is not the only one traveling to Kentucky. The BGSU Baseball guys will be in Kentucky starting today at 2p.m. taking on Eastern Kentucky.
As of now BGSU holds a record of 3-7-1 while Eastern Kentucky holds on to a balanced 7-7 season. Since the beginning of the program, BG has met EKU a total of twenty times and holds the winning, all-time record of 16-4 over the Colonels. Last year’s match up resulted in an 8-4 score with the Falcons on top.
Brennan Smith, Michael Frank and Kevin Leady are the starting pitchers set up to throw against EKU this weekend. Leady struck out nine batters which is a new career high and only walked one when he pitched against butler last week. Ross Gerdeman was set up perfectly for his first career save in the Falcons victory over Butler 3-1.
After being in Florida all last week, the Falcons went out swinging. Jon Berti and T.J. Blanton went for a combined 23-for-38 in the five games that were played. Combined, the two accounted for 16 of the Falcon’s 47 runs on the week.
The Falcons will be back in town for their home opener on Wednesday March 24. BGSU plays host to Central Michigan University.

BGSU Falcons to Take on Michigan State at the NCAA Tourney

Well, it was bound to happen through the four years I was here. THE WOMEN’S BASKETBALL TEAM MADE IT TO THE BIG SHOW! This team has been outstanding throughout the past years and this is something that they deserve completely. So congratulation to the girls… but now it’s time to focus.
Curt Miller and his Falcon team have been named a #12 seed going into the championships. Saturday afternoon the team will take on #5 seed Michigan State in Kentucky a little after noon.
The Spartans are 22-9 on their entire season; 12-6 in the Big Ten. These records get them a 25 spot in the national rankings and a pretty big ego.
The Falcons are 27-6; 14-2 in the Mac and are coming off an eight game winning streak. Last weekend, BGSU became the five-time MAC Champion in Cleveland, OH. Junior Lauren Prochaska scored a game-high 29 points, earning her the MAC tourney MVP and room to brag. Prochaska stand in third place of all-time career scoring list with 1,680 points just under Ali Mann and Jackie Motycka.
The team left from Anderson Arena yesterday in style while family and fans sent them off in style. And if you missed the celebration that Falcon Club Bus will be taking fans to Louisville tomorrow morning. Prepare for coffee because the bus leaves promptly at 5am Saturday morning, leaving the fans enough time to catch the Alumni Association pre-game celebration in Kentucky.

The best of luck to the Falcons from all of us.

P.s. It’s my birthday Saturday so let’s bring home a winner!

Lady Falcons Rack Up Six In A Row

A sixth-straight MAC Title for the women’s basketball team has just been one more thing added to their lists of achievements. Miami is a tough team and fought hard to the end while the Falcons took the W with a score of 62-58.
Ms. Prochaska graced the Redhawks with 25 points as she broke the 3-point field goals made record held at BGSU. Not far behind Prochaska were Tamika Nurse with 13 points and Tracy Pontius with 12.
The game started slowly with only a bucket a piece within the first three minutes. Although the Falcons allowed 18 turnovers they forced 18 out of Miami with Breske, Pontius and Prochaska with a combined 13 steals.
Bowling Green moves on to Cleveland next Wednesday at 4pm to take on either Miami again or Northern Illinois, depending on who wakes the W in that game. I’ll be attending the game so be sure to check back for some pictures/video.

Men's BBall Looks to Start a Winning Streak

The guys from Valpo made their way to Bowling Green this weekend… for nothing really. Looking to take on the Falcons in the ‘House that Roars’ was a bad idea, considering BG had a TWENTY-FIVE point lead at halftime. Embarrassing really, but the Falcons now improve a winning record of 14-12 on the season.
Dee Brown ended the game with 20 points, 7-12 shooting and five assist to his fellow teammates. But you know what they say, defense wins games. BG ended up with a season-high 14 steals from Thomas, Jakubowski and Polk who ran into some foul trouble and only played a few minutes in the first half.
With that winning record, the Falcons host Kent State tonight in Anderson Arena. With tip off at 7pm BG has a rough game ahead of them. Overall Kent State has a record of 20-8, 7 of 5 on the road. As good as our defense showed to be on Saturday, they will have to trump that tonight to even think about putting a tally in the win column.

BGSU Gymnastics Soaring Above

Sunday afternoon the BGSU Gymnastics team had a little something different to compete for. The meet against Eastern Michigan University was an important one, since the girls were looking to improve to 5-0 in the MAC but Anderson Arena was full of lavender... and hope. All-cancer awareness was the theme and the girls had an excellent turn out. They also had a little something extra to compete for.
Megan Chronister, a senior on the team, lost her mother to cancer this past summer and it was her idea, along with the help of her teammates, to bring everyone together in the light of hope.
With brand new uniforms and lavender ribbons under their left eyes, the Falcons took the gym by storm. It was a different atmosphere, a very positive one; you could definitely feel the fight in the air. And instead of really wanting to beat down the other team… all the girls wanted to do was beat down cancer.
With all the positive energy, the Falcons soared over Eastern to improve their MAC record to 5-0. An undefeated one… and a season that will truly make history.
The girls will be back on the mats this Sunday when they travel to Kalamazoo to take on Western Michigan University. The meets is scheduled to start at 1pm.

Ay Ziggy Zoomba

I think all athletes should know their fight song! Roll Along!

Falcon Icers Fall to Michigan

The Falcon Icers have struggled, especially throughout the beginning of their season. Lately, a winning streak has left fans hoping for more and the Falcons traveled to Ann Arbor to finish up their series with Michigan Tuesday night. The Falcons have won their last two trips to Yost Ice Arena but Michigan took them by surprise and took the ‘W’ 4-0.
Goal tender Nick Eno held the Wolverines off with three saves worth writing about. Two of those saves came within seconds of each other. The score remained at zero going into the second period. Just after the period started, Eno went down with a minor lower leg injury and was taken off the ice. Freshman Andrew Hammond stepped in and felt the pressure immediately. One goal slipped through his grasp resulting in the first goal of the game, but Hammond made 10 consecutive saves for the Falcons.
A late power play chance for BG gave them two shots on goal, but they prove to be unlucky. Despite offensive efforts by Falcons Tommy Dee and Kai Kantola, the team came up short and fell to Michigan 4-0. Eno ended up 13 for 13 on saved shots against him and Hammond with 24 of 28 shots faced.
After the loss, Bowling Green stands with a 4-20-4 overall record, putting them at 3-15-4-3 in the conference. Friday night, BGSU hosts number one ranked Miami Redhawks. The two-game series starts at 7p.m. at the BGSU Ice Arena.