Before the season started, outsiders weren’t quite sure what to make of Bowling Green.
After all, the Falcons had lost 11 players to either graduation or the transfer portal.
It would have understandably been hard to predict how losing so many key contributors would affect a program that has won 20-plus games for seven straight seasons.
“The biggest thing is, going into this year, with the 10-person class we had last year, we knew there was going to be significant turnover. So we tried to the best of our ability to plan for that,” BGSU coach Ty Eigner said Tuesday. “It was a challenge, no doubt, it was a challenge. No matter what other people thought about our team outside of our program going into this year, you can’t fault them or be mad at them for that opinion. We lost a bunch of players, and that’s part of college athletics.”
Inside of the program, though, Eigner and his coaching staff had the same expectations. And so far, with one-third of the season gone, Bowling Green is 7-3-2 and well on pace for another solid finish.
In other words, it seems that reports of the Falcons’ demise have been greatly exaggerated.
“The standard that we’ve had at this program around here the past, seven, eight years of winning 20 games and being a program that can go play anybody, anywhere, that doesn’t change,” Eigner said. “We’ve tried to make sure our guys are aware of that. We’re not lowering the standard because we had a big senior class. We have to do the best we can to maintain that standard and play to that standard.”
Although Eigner knew all of those players would be impossible to outright replace, BGSU’s coaching staff seems to have found a way to, as the cliche goes, reload instead of rebuild, with a combination of transfers, freshmen and returning players.
Minnesota transfer Nathan Burke currently leads the team with eight goals while Ferris State transfer Coale Norris has 10 points. Defenseman Gabe Chicoine, a transfer from Division III Norwich, has 11 assists from the blueline. Eigner said all three have been “significant contributors” to the Falcons in every game.
Internally, players like forwards Taylor Schneider, Alex Barber and Sam Craggs — who elected to return for a fifth year — and goaltender Zach Rose have stepped into bigger roles than they were in previously. Schneider, Barber and Craggs have been anchoring the Falcons’ first line while Rose has taken over nicely for the departed Eric Dop.
“It might have been a little uncomfortable for them early, but now they’re comfortable knowing what the expectations are for them and knowing what their roles are,” Eigner said of the team’s returning players.
But the biggest revelation has been BGSU’s freshmen class. Eigner said the Falcons’ coaching staff was excited about them coming into the season but now they have proven themselves in game situations.
One of those freshmen, Austen Swankler, is currently leading the team with 13 points (five goals, eight assists) while another, goaltender Christian Stoever, has been rotating in the nets with Rose and has a .910 save percentage and 2.59 GAA through five games.
“We knew these kids would have opportunities to contribute right away because of the number of kids we were going to lose, and they’ve done a really nice job,” he said.
To give an idea of just how much BG has been relying on some of these freshmen, Eigner pointed to the Falcons’ series against Minnesota State two weeks ago in Mankato. The Mavericks swept the series, 9-2 and 5-3 — the worst weekend for the Falcons so far this year. But Eigner was impressed with how well the freshmen played against the country’s top team.
“Everybody believed Minnesota State was going to be a really good team, and that’s proven to be true. But when you looked at the lineup charts last Saturday for our second game in that series, they had a bunch of returning players and no freshmen in their lineup,” he said. “We had seven. That’s just who we are. Our challenge for our group this year is to make sure we’re working hard every day and be the best version of ourselves we can.”
That series — especially the heavy defeat — could have hurt BG’s confidence a little. But the Falcons bounced back from that weekend on Mankato with a complete sweep of their own against Lake Superior State. The Falcons beat the Lakers 5-1 and 6-2, moving up to third place in the WCHA standings.
It’s all part of Eigner and the BG coaching staff’s plan to continue to get better as the season goes on.
“Even before we played a game this season, we believed our team has the ability to get better as the year goes on, just because we have so many new people,” Eigner said. “(Last weekend) was a really good bounceback for our guys and a really good way for our guys to build some momentum and build some confidence.”
