All is well in "Neverland".....

FalconBlue · Post by **FalconBlue** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 1:23 pm

Falcons Hit The Road, Play Providence and #1 Boston College
BGSU has first road trip of the year this weekend.

Oct. 17, 2006

BOWLING GREEN, Ohio -

After a strong start inside the BG Ice Arena this past weekend the Falcons enter their first road trip of the new season with contests against Providence at #1 Boston College. The last time the Orange and Brown squared off with the No. 1 team in the country was back on Dec. 1-2, 2000 when they hosted Michigan State.

Series With The Friars
BGSU leads the all-time series with Friars, 4-3-0. The last time these two teams hooked up was back on Dec. 30, 2004, with the Friars skating away with a 3-2 win. James Unger picked up a goal in the loss, while John Mazzei and Michael Hodgson added helpers.

Series With The Eagles
Boston College holds a 9-3-0 all-time series lead over BGSU. Last year the Eagles won inside the BG Ice Arena 9-6. Junior Jonathan Matsumoto recorded his first career hat trick in the loss with the help of three power-play goals. Current BC head coach Jerry York coached at BGSU for 15 years and compiled a 342-248-31 record with the Falcons, including the Falcons lone national title in 1984. Current Falcon head coach Scott Paluch played under York as well as coached alongside him from 1992-94 at BGSU and again at BC from 1994-2002.The last Falcon win over the Eagles came back on Oct. 19, 1996 in a 4-2 win inside the BG Ice Arena. BGSU has never won at BC.

Recap of The Past Weekend
BGSU 2, UConn 1 (OT)
BGSU 5, Alabama-Huntsville 5 (OT)

BGSU opened the season 1-0-1 for their first undefeated weekend to open the season since the 2004-05 campaign with a 2-1 victory over Connecticut in overtime, to go along with a 5-5 tie with the Chargers of Alabama-Huntsville, also in OT. On Friday, junior forward Derek Whitmore scored just 46 seconds into overtime to secure the win over the Huskies, while freshman Todd McIlrath recorded his first career collegiate goal with just 53 seconds left in regulation to help the Falcons record a tie versus UAH on Sunday. The Sunday contest also gave freshman Kai Kantola his first career goal and Whitmore added a pair of goals to finish with four points on the weekend (3g, 1a).

Back-To-Back Overtimes To Open The Season
With a 2-1 overtime win over Connecticut and a 5-5 tie to Alabama-Huntsville the Falcons opened the season with a pair of overtime contests. The last time that occurred came back on Oct. 20-21, 1978. In fact, the last time the Falcons opened the season with an overtime game came back on Oct. 17, 1980 in a 3-2 win over Michigan.

Special Powers For Falcon Special Teams
The BGSU special teams this past weekend held their opponents scoreless on 10 opportunities with the man advantage, with UConn going 0-for-3 and UAH 0-for-7. In fact, in those 10 power plays, the opposition recorded only two shots. BGSU is just one of four team that have yet to allow a power-play goal this season, joining Army, Boston College and St. Cloud State.

The Falcons power-play also managed four goals over the weekend (all coming versus Alabama-Huntsville) on 19 attempts (.211), with four different Falcons posting goals: Jonathan Matsumoto, Derek Whitmore, Todd McIlrath and Kai Kantola. The Falcons' power play ranks 13th nationally and third in the CCHA.

Freshman Impact
BGSU welcomed 13 new players to the 2006-07 squad with eight of them seeing action the opening weekend, and five of them reaching the score sheet. The Falcons were led by Todd McIlrath, who posted one goal and two helpers over the weekend. Other newcomers that have recorded points include: Tim Maxwell (0g, 2a), Kai Kantola (1g, 0a) and Tomas Petruska (0g, 1a). Also of note, freshman netminder Eddie Neville stopped 22-of-24 shots versus UAH in relief of Jimmy Spratt. Kyle Page, James Perkin and Tommy Dee also saw action this past weekend.

Shot Differential Different From Last Season?
BGSU surrendered only 45 shots this past weekend (17 vs. UConn and 26 vs. UAH). Last season alone they allowed 40+ shots in a single game on four different occasions, and for a weekend total, the minimum the Falcons allowed was 55 (23 vs. Merrimack and 33 vs. Boston College).

Falcons In The National Rankings
• Derek Whitmore (3-1--4) ranks 15th nationally with 2.0 points/game and fifth in the country with 1.5 goals/game.
• Jonathan Matsumoto (2-1--3) ranks 15th in the country with his 1.0 goals/game.
• Mike Nesdill (0-2--2) and Tim Maxwell (0-2--2) rank 13th nationally in points per game among defenseman with 1.0 points/game. •Todd McIlrath (2-1--3) is fourth in the country with his 1.5 points/game among freshman.
• Eddie Neville is 19th in goals against average (1.96).

How Low Can You Go?
In two games this season the Falcons have committed just 10 penalties for a total of 20 minutes. Of the 52 teams that have played this year the Falcons rank second in penalty minutes per game (10.0) Only St. Cloud State (7.0) is averaging fewer penalty minutes this season.

bigdog · Post by **bigdog** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 1:52 pm

Those are good stats and I'm not sure what was the point of all of it, I kept waiting for a point to show in the novel. There are a lot of good stats that were posted there that show a lot of promise for the team, just understand that those are the two easiest games we will play all year.

transfer2BGSU · Post by **transfer2BGSU** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 2:10 pm

bigdog wrote:...those are the two easiest games we will play all year.

"we"?

You playing now and done crying?

MACMAN · Post by **MACMAN** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 10:41 pm

he never played to begin with
to biz being a meow.

bigdog · Post by **bigdog** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 4:08 pm

macman, you need to read your posts before finalizing them, it makes no sense.

Peregrinner · Post by **Peregrinner** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 4:57 pm

that's funny, I understood exactly what he meant.

The Niz · Post by **The Niz** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 5:49 pm

bigdog wrote:macman, you need to read your posts before finalizing them, it makes no sense.

All of us understand it. Although Macman isn't usually one of the most grammatically correct users in this forum, his language and communication skills are still miles ahead of yours. At least he usually seperates his ideas into logical statements instead of a mass jumble of unpunctuated ramblings.

BG84 · Post by **BG84** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 9:14 pm

Can't tell anything from two games worth of statistics.

I'll have the pleasure of seeing the Falcons vs. the Friars in person. At least, I hope it will be a pleasure. My prediction? A tie. And a loss to BC Saturday.