THURSDAY, AUGUST 14  |  7:00 P.M.  |  COCHRANE STADIUM  |  BOWLING GREEN, OHIO

(BGSU-Illinois game links at bottom of page)

SETTING THE SCENE / FOLLOW THE FALCONS
• The Bowling Green State University women's soccer team begins the 2025 regular-season schedule with a three-match homestand, including a pair of contests this week. Head coach Chris Fox and the Falcons begin with a Thursday (Aug. 14) matchup against Oakland University. That contest will begin at 7:00 p.m. at Cochrane Stadium. Admission is free to all BGSU home soccer matches.

• Then, the Orange and Brown will face the University of Illinois on Sunday afternoon (Aug. 17), with first touch set for 1:00 p.m. at Cochrane.

WHERE TO WATCH
• Thursday's Oakland match will be streamed on YouTube, and produced by WBGU-TV.

• Sunday's Illinois contest will be televised by BCSN (on the NLL Network) in the Toledo area, and also will be streamed via the BCSN+ app as well as ESPN+.

STATS & SOCIAL MEDIA
• Links to live stats (as well as to any available audio/video) for all 2025 matches can always be found on the web at BGSUFalcons.com – both on the women's soccer schedule page and in the right column on the main page – on match day.

THE STARTING XI
I – Head coach Chris Fox and his staff – first-year assistant coaches Steven Samuel and Kyle Pettican – have a total of 20 returning student-athletes on the 2025 roster. That group includes seven starters from a year ago.

II – Six of the top-nine point-scorers from that 2024 club return, including junior Emma Stransky, who had the most goals (four) and points (10) among the returning players.

III – Fellow juniors Emme Butera and Taylor Green are also back after each player started all 18 matches a year ago. Butera had seven points en route to earning All-Mid-American Conference Second-Team honors, while Green anchored a BG back line that kept six clean sheets.

IV – Another junior, Michelle Hochstadt, led the Falcons with five assists in her first season in Northwest Ohio. The Morehead State transfer made 12 starts in '24.

V – In goal, Payton O'Malley returns after starting the final nine matches of her freshman season and recording a 1.56 goals-against average and a pair of shutouts. Fellow sophomore Haley Wolf also started nine contests, including the final eight matches, and joined O'Malley on the MAC's All-Freshman Team.

VI – BGSU finished the 2024 season with an overall record of 7-7-4 and a MAC ledger of 4-4-3. The Falcons finished in sixth place in the 12-team conference. The Falcons went 4-1-3 at home and 3-6-1 on the road in 2024.

VII – The 2025 roster includes no fewer than 14 players who did not see action for the Orange and Brown last fall. The group of nine newcomers includes five NCAA Division-I transfers and four true freshmen. Additionally, five Falcons – Christie Fransen, Audrey Oliver, Ellie Pool, Jayna Searles and Minah Syam – missed the entire 2024 campaign due to injury. Pool, a sixth-year collegian, has scored 39 total points in 56 collegiate matches.

VIII – Oakland, like BGSU, opens the 2025 regular-season schedule on Thursday night. The Golden Grizzlies went 3-14-2 overall and 2-8-0 in Horizon League play last fall. BGSU and OU are tied, 3-3-2, in the all-time series, and played to a scoreless draw at Cochrane Stadium last season.

IX – Illinois begins the Katie Hultin Era on Thursday with a match at UIC, before heading to Northwest Ohio this weekend. Last season, the Fighting Illini went 8-8-2 overall and 4-6-1 in Big Ten Conference play. Sarah Foley returns after leading the team in both goals (11) and points (25). Illinois won the only prior meeting with the Falcons, a 5-1 decision at Cochrane in the fall of 2021.

X – There are 11 home matches on the 2025 schedule. BGSU has not played as many as 11 home games since the 2021 campaign, but two of those contests came in the MAC Tournament. The last time the Falcons played 11 regular-season matches at home was in 2016.

XI – The MAC office recently announced that the 2025 and 2026 MAC Women's Soccer Championships each will take place at Historic Crew Stadium in Columbus, Ohio. This will mark the first time in conference history that the event will be held at a neutral site. The '25 quarterfinals will take place on Saturday, Nov. 1, with the semifinals slated for Tuesday, Nov. 4, and the final on Friday night, Nov. 7.
 
FOR MORE INFORMATION...
• For more information on the women's soccer program, follow the Falcons on Twitter/X (@BGSU_Athletics and @BGSU_WSoccer), Instagram (bgsu_wsoccer) and Facebook (bgsuwsoc), and on the web at BGSUFalcons.com.
 

SUNDAY, AUGUST 17  |  1:00 P.M.  |  COCHRANE STADIUM  |  BOWLING GREEN, OHIO