2019-20 year in review

It gets busy around here – CUW teams competed in 406 events during the 2019-20 athletics season. Those events took place from August 30, 2019, through March 12, 2020. Men's Golf, Men's Soccer, Women's Volleyball and Women's Tennis began the athletics calendar, while Acrobatics & Tumbling closed out the year with a victory.

 

Overall record – CUW finished the 2019-20 season with a 187-128-6 record in the 20 sports that measure W-L records in some capacity. The Falcons posted a .592 winning percentage as a department. The highest winning percentage went to Softball team who went 4-0 in their shortened season.

Playing at home – Of the 406 events during the 2019-20 athletics year, 134 were played at home. The overall record for CUW on its home playing surface was 84-46-4 or a .642 winning percentage. Three programs took advantage of home games with unblemished records, as Men's Lacrosse, Acrobatics & Tumbling and Women's Tennis combined to go 11-0. Of the 17 sports we used to measure this statistic this year, 11 finished with a .500 winning percentage at home games or better during the past athletic year.

Conference record – The Falcons were once again excellent in conference play, posting an 95-56-5 record or a .627 winning percentage in the 15 sports that played a conference game this year. CUW takes part in the NACC, NCHA, SAA, MLC, MWLC, CCIW and NCHL conferences. Overall, eight had records above .500.

 

Live stream broadcasts: The Department of Athletic Communications produced 132 live stream broadcasts of home events during the 2019-20 season.

 

All-Region honorees – The Falcons were once again well-represented on All-Region lists during the 2019-20 season. CUW had six student-athletes earn All-Region status in their respective sports. Here is a list of those student-athletes: Sam Dunn (Field Hockey) - NFCA All-Great Lakes Second Team; Megan McPike (Field Hockey) - NFCA All-Great Lakes First Team; Karoline Haugland (Women's Soccer) - USC All-Central Region First Team; Allison McElwee (Women's Soccer) - USC All-Central Region Third Team and Emily Hafemann was named to the CoSIDA Academic All-District Team in Women's Basketball and Molly O'Connell named to the CoSIDA Academic All-District Team in Softball.

Players of the Year – In all, there were four student-athletes were recognized by their respective conference for superb play on the field or court, while one coach was honored for the leadership abilities. The following is a list of those individuals: Lorri Pitock (Field Hockey - SAA Newcomer of the Year), Karoline Haugland (Women's Soccer - NACC Offensive Player of the Year and NACC Freshman of the Year), Jonathan Grodski (ACHA Hockey - NCHL Player of the Year), Mack Willy (ACHA Hockey - NCHL Rookie of the Year) and Ryan Middendorf (Women's Soccer - NACC Coach of the Year).

All-Conference accolades – CUW was once again well-represented on All-Conference lists throughout all sports. The Falcons had a total of 47 student-athletes receive All-Conference honors. Any player who was listed on a first or second team, honorable mention or all-freshman team was listed.

Advancing to the national stage – The Falcons had two teams secure a conference tournament championship and advance to the NCAA Division III Tournament in their respective sports during the 2019-20 athletics year. In the fall, the women's soccer program won their first-ever NACC Tournament title for their second-ever trip to the NCAA Tournament. The men's basketball team claimed its second NACC Tournament title in program history.

National rankings – Only one student-athlete can be crowned an NCAA Division III statistical champion per year and the Falcons were fortunate to seven athletes crowned a statistical champion and three team earn a statistical champion. Below is a list of student-athletes and teams who ranked first nationally in a statistical category:

Football - Blocked Punts Allowed (0)
Women's Soccer - Shots on Goal Per Game (14.41)
Softball - Doubles Per Game (3.50)
Softball - Hit Batters (1)
Softball - Strikeout to Walk Ratio (16.50)
Softball - Win-Loss Percentage (1.000)

Molly O'Connell - Softball - Doubles Per Game (1.00)
Nicki Becker - Softball - Earned Run Average (0.00)
Gina Followell - Softball - Hit Batters (1) and Walks Allowed Per Seven Innings (0.0)

Taylor Kuske, Kelsey Bollon, Samantha Schloegl and Sydney Erdmann - Softball - Toughest to Strikeout (0.0)

Social Media – The Department of Athletic Communications strives to connect with its fans via its various social media accounts and this past year strived to provide a better experience with game day photos and videos. In addition, there were 414 new followers being added to bring the total Twitter followers count to 4,262. As well, CUW spent countless hours improving it's content on it's Instagram, posting nearly 360 photos or videos and raising the followers count by 845 to 3,145 followers.

Those behind the scenes – Steven Schauer, Jeremy Crawford and Jordan Benson would like to thank all those who helped the Department of Athletic Communications throughout the 2019-20 athletic year, especially the staff of 25-plus student workers who tirelessly helped the behind the scenes efforts. Those student workers assisted in updating CUWFalcons.com in a variety of capacities, oversaw multi-camera live video streams, took official statistics, ran scoreboards, announced and played music, took photos, captured highlights and produced content for social media; and did other tasks as needed to run the games the fans watch with ease. As well, our broadcasters deserve credit for their work in calling dozens of Falcon games.

Athletic Communications working overtime – Those who work in the Department of Athletic Communications had to work a little extra during the 2019-20 athletic year, as they were challenged with the task of hosting a multitude of tournaments (regular season and postseason) and various other athletic events.