BOWLING GREEN — As one of his first tasks upon meeting his new team, Matt Fannon’s players asked him to tell a joke.
The Bowling Green women’s soccer team wanted to see if its new coach had a sense of humor, and he did. He obliged with the joke.
During the lead up to last season, the Falcons were certain Fannon was telling them another one. After evaluating BG’s roster, the coaching staff decided to play a 3-4-3, a hyper-aggressive formation that demands very specific personnel and an understanding between players that can take years to develop.
This time, he wasn’t kidding.
“We’re all like, ‘No. No. Why? We don’t play like that,’” said current BG senior Jennifer Reyes.
As a new coach, Fannon said he had two choices. He could remain tactically rugged and force a system upon the players, or he could adapt based on their strengths. The former Wittenberg University head coach opted for the latter, and he asked the players to trust him.
Their first result: A 5-1 victory at Oakland in the 2017 season opener.
“Everyone was arguing with me about this is a terrible system and we’re never going to get it right, and then we went to Oakland and put five past them,” Fannon said. “I remember the first thing I said was, ‘Hey, do you have any more concerns about the system?’
“I think everyone walked away realizing we can do this.”
The turnaround within BG’s program has been drastic. Bowling Green finished 13-7-1 last season and came an overtime away from qualifying for the NCAA tournament.
This year, the Falcons are 11-4-2 and have clinched the regular-season title in the Mid-American Conference. They’re currently 9-1 in the league before Thursday’s regular-season finale vs. Toledo and the favorite to win the league’s bid for the NCAA tournament, which the program hasn’t made since 2005.
They’ve also stuck to the 3-4-3 formation.
“As soon as we started winning games, we were like, ‘We like this so much more,’” said Reyes, who moved from forward to wingback to accommodate the change. “We couldn’t imagine playing a different system than we do.”
NCAA tournament hopes are a far cry from previous years. Before Fannon arrived, the Falcons — forget the NCAA tournament — missed the eight-team MAC tournament eight times in a row.
While the wins have been nice for BG, the change in culture for the Falcons’ program has been apparent.
“We’re all judged on wins and losses,” BG director of athletics Bob Moosbrugger said, “but what he’s done with this team as far as restoring confidence on and off the field has been awesome to see.”
More than playing a formation, Fannon said knowing where to be and when is more important. That took about 18 months, he said, but now BG also is playing with belief — something that wasn’t always there.
“I’m not sure they believed in themselves to be able to do the things I was asking them to do,” Fannon said. “That was the main thing. I could see it. I knew we had it in us.”
Senior forward Erica Hubert leads the team with 12 goals and nine assists, while junior Chelsee Washington has added nine goals and eight helpers. Junior goalkeeper Kathleen Duwve, a Northview graduate, has allowed just 10 goals in 17 starts.
The Falcons’ most important games of the year are still ahead of them, starting with a MAC quarterfinal on Sunday.
Even with changed expectations, Fannon said his team is far from satisfied with just a good regular season.
And that’s no joke.
“There’s so much more to do,” Fannon said. “I don’t think we’re ever satisfied, and I think that’s the biggest thing this team brings. No matter how well we do something, everybody just wants more.”
First Published October 24, 2018, 3:22 p.m.
