After a successful 2-0-0 start to the 2024 season at Cochrane Stadium, BGSU women’s soccer will leave the nest in search of their next victory, heading to Pittsburgh to take on the Duquesne Dukes (1-1-0) on Sunday, Aug. 25 at 4 p.m.
This matchup will start a three-week road trip that will also feature games against Loyola Chicago and Cleveland State before the Falcons return home against Oakland on Sep. 12.
BGSU head coach Chris Fox has made a statement about how his squad intends to produce on the pitch. The Falcons lead the Mid-American Conference (MAC) with an average of three goals per game thanks to back-to-back wins over Detroit Mercy and Findlay.
The Falcons will meet their match on Sunday, as Duquesne leads their own Atlantic 10 Conference with an average of 3.5 goals per game.
Scouting the Past
Bowling Green’s victory over Findlay on Thursday gave them wins in their first two regular season games for the first time since 2020, and a win on Sunday would give them three straight opening wins for the first time since 1998 when they beat Valparaiso, Western Illinois and Robert Morris to start 3-0-0.
The Falcons have also scored six goals in those two wins, the most through a pair of opening games since 2015 when a 4-0 win against Chicago State and a 3-0 win over IPFW gave them seven in only two matches.
You have to go back to 2004 to find the only match Bowling Green has ever played against Duquesne ahead of the game on Sunday, where the Falcons put up seven goals in a huge 7-3 win over the Dukes in Bowling Green.
Duquesne has seen some success in more recent years of their women’s soccer program, reaching the Atlantic 10 semifinals in 2023 after finishing 4-2-4 in conference play in the 12th year of head coach Al Alvine’s stay in Pittsburgh.
In 2024, the Dukes have started 1-1 with a 6-2 win over Mercyhurst followed by a 2-1 loss against the seventh-ranked Pitt Panthers.
Duquesne has struggled against the MAC in past years, posting a 1-4-0 record against teams of the conference dating back to 2019, with their lone win coming at home against Ohio in 2022.
BGSU will play as many games against the A10 this season as they have played against the conference since 2010, going 1-1 in those games with a win against Loyola Chicago in 2023 and a loss against St. Bonaventure in 2010.
Falcons to Watch
After two relatively uneventful games for Vukas in goal where she only posted five saves on six shots on goal across 180 minutes of action, the junior goalie will have certain pressure from Duquesne’s high-powered offense.
The Dukes have put 23 shots on goal in their first two games of the season, far more than Vukas has seen, and despite Bowling Green’s defensive prowess, they will be challenging more than Bowling Green’s first two opponents of the season and Vukas must be ready for it.
Vukas has looked composed and confident to start the year and will be looking to continue the hot streak on Sunday.
Although the Falcons have relied on underclassmen for four of their first six goals, Gardner has been one of the strikers to watch so far for the Falcons, posting her first goal of the season in the opener against Detroit Mercy.
Gardner was extremely successful on the road in her 2023 breakout season as a Falcon, scoring four of her six goals in matches away from Cochrane Stadium.
The junior striker will be asked to do much of the same in 2024 as a leader of the Falcon squad and a leader of a unit of promising young strikers who have emerged in the first two games of the season.
Dukes to Watch
The junior Medina native has been lighting up the scoresheet for the Dukes in 2024, scoring four of their first seven goals including a hat trick in the season opener against Mercyhurst.
Brown is hungry for a breakout season in 2024 that has already started to formulate after earning Atlantic 10 All-Rookie honors in 2022 and following it up with a similarly successful 2023 year where she scored a goal in 14 starts and 16 games played.
Brown has stepped into a role that puts herself as the focus of a Duke offense that has seen extreme success early on and she will be coming into the matchup against Bowling Green with confidence, making herself worthy to be the one to keep an eye on near the Falcon goal.
Another junior who has been tearing it up for Duquesne, Krafchick was the leader in minutes among returning members of the team in 2023, and the defender has already made the next step to becoming the leader of the Duke defensive unit.
After the departures of key defenders Anna Campanella and Karley Steinher, Duquesne will need Krafchick to step up and be a leader of this defensive core after she posted almost 1500 minutes in 2023, making her the perfect candidate for a 2024 breakout.
The Pennsylvania native has already scored a goal this season against Mercyhurst, so her confidence, as well as the rest of the team’s, is sure to be through the roof, and they are expected to play at an extremely high level.
