The Bowling Green men’s soccer team was flying high, sitting atop the Mid-American Conference regular season standings. Now the regular season is over and it’s tournament time. Two more wins for the Falcons means a tournament championship to complement their regular season crown and a trip to the NCAA tournament.

The Falcons will be spectators during the first round of the tournament at Marshall University after they won the regular season MAC championship and earned the No. 1 seed for the tournament and a first round bye.

The Falcons will face the winner of Friday’s No. 4 seed Buffalo versus No. 5 seed Kentucky game in Sunday’s semifinal match in Huntington, WV at 3 p.m.

“They’re [Kentucky] the defending champs, they’re the team to beat. Until someone knocks them off they’re the champs even though they’ve struggled in the regular season. They’re still the team that we’re going to have to go through,” BG coach Mel Mahler said.

Mahler also acknowledged the strengths of Buffalo’s team and that they would also be a difficult match-up. One of the advantages the Falcons will have over their opponent is that they will be able to watch them play in the first round while the team that plays the Falcons in the second round will have to rely on what they saw earlier in the season from BG. This could be a major disadvantage to Kentucky since they did not play BG in the regular season.

The winner of Sunday’s game will play the winner of Sunday’s other semifinal game at the campus of the highest remaining seed in the tournament on Saturday, Nov. 16.

Akron, the No. 2 seed in the tournament, will play No. 7 Western Michigan and No. 3 Marshall will face No. 6 Northern Illinois.

After starting the season 0-8, the Falcons were to travel to Kentucky to play the defending MAC champions. Heavy rain caused the game to be cancelled and the Wildcats are the only MAC team that the Falcons have not played this season.

After the cancellation of the Kentucky game, BG won two games in a row and went on to finish 5-4 in the second half of the season. The Falcons were 4-1 in the MAC, losing only to Western Michigan, 1-0.

“We could have easily been 7-2. We’re pleased with that,” Mahler said. “With our experience to be close to .500 the second half of the season is good and the fact that we won the four games in the conference to give us the No. 1 seed is even better.”

Bowling Green soccer teams have a history of success in the MAC tournament. BG defeated Buffalo in three overtimes in the first round of last year’s tournament, but lost to eventual champion, Kentucky in the semifinals.

In 2000, the Falcons defeated Buffalo in the semifinals but lost to Kentucky in the championship game.

BG last won the MAC championship in 1997. The Falcons won three straight championships under Coach Mahler from 1995 to 1997. They also finished second in 1994 and 1998.

While most of the players will be competing in their first MAC tournament matches, BG can count on the experience of senior Matt Leardini, red-shirt junior Matt Martinka, and junior goalkeeper David DeGraff. All are veterans of MAC tournament games.

One aspect of tournament play that could work to BG’s advantage is the tendency for the games to be close, low-scoring games. The Falcons have played in numerous close games this season, especially in the second half of the season. In seven of their final eight games the Falcons either won by one goal or lost by one goal.

Bowling Green also has overtime experience within the conference this season. In a game against Marshall earlier this season, the Falcons hung on to win in double overtime.

“I think being in close games makes you battle tough but at the same time two-thirds of this team has never been to a conference tournament and have yet to experience the intensity,” Mahler said.

“The regular season match is one thing. Tournament play is completely different. The fact that we’ve played a lot of close games down the stretch has prepared them as best as we can, but there’s no replacement for experience first-hand.

“I’m happy with where we’re at. We’ve got the momentum that we need to head into the tournament. We’re confident and we know that there’s not a team in the conference that we can’t beat and now it’s just going to be a matter of executing.”