Nichols and the Falcons welcome two new assistant coaches – Gonzalo Carranza and Jack Bennett – and the Orange and Brown have no fewer than 15 newcomers on the roster.
That 2025 roster also features a total of 12 returning student-athletes, including six starters from a year ago.
Media Day is in the books, & fall practices begin tomorrow!#AyZiggy | 🟠⚽️🟤 pic.twitter.com/9ZSyG6HPPK
— BGSU Men’s Soccer (@BGSUMSoccer) August 4, 2025
First day of practice is in the books!#AyZiggy | 🟠⚽️🟤 pic.twitter.com/QKo9uvRqUk
— BGSU Men’s Soccer (@BGSUMSoccer) August 6, 2025
Four of the top-six point-scorers from the 2024 club return for Nichols, Carranza, Bennett and assistant coach Ryan James. The returnees include a pair of Falcon forwards who combined for a whopping 25 goals and 59 points last fall.
Junior Bennett Painter led the Falcons with 13 goals and 30 points a year ago, while senior Trace Terry had 12 goals and 29 points. That duo combined for nine game-winning goals.
Terry was named to the United Soccer Coaches All-America Second Team last season, and also was named to the TopDrawerSoccer.com Best XI Third Team.
Terry and the graduated Kyle Cusimano each earned All-America accolades last fall, as Cusimano was named to the United Soccer Coaches All-America First Team. The 2024 season marked the first time in program history that the Falcons had two players named All-Americans by NSCAA/United Soccer Coaches.
Terry was named to the All-Missouri Valley Conference First-Team, while Painter earned All-MVC Second-Team honors.
In December of 2024, Terry was drafted by Seattle Sounders FC in the third round of the MLS SuperDraft. He is the first player in program history to return to the Falcons after being drafted, and is the fifth player in history – and the first since Scott Vallow in 1999 – to come back for another season after being named an All-American.
Painter is one of three returning Falcons who started all 20 matches a year ago, as senior Andrew Shaffer and junior Gus Peacock also were penciled into the Starting XI for every 2024 contest.
Shaffer was fourth on the team in scoring, with 13 points, and tied for the team lead with nine assists. Shaffer has 29 career points at BGSU, ranking third among active Falcons behind Terry (47) and Painter (38).
Peacock, a defender, helped the Falcons keep six clean sheets last season. Terry and junior Anthony Hernandez each started 19 of the Falcons’ 20 games last fall.
Other returning Falcons include junior Mads Christensen and sophomore Ryko Bodurov. Christensen, who was named to the MVC’s All-Freshman Team in 2023, made 11 starts last fall, while Bodurov scored six of his eight points during the 2024 MVC Tournament as BGSU advanced to the championship match.
Redshirt junior Amer Dedic, true junior Saul Rios and redshirt sophomore Aiden Ptacek round out the Falcons’ returning letterwinners, while goalkeepers Jason Ball and Will Schutte also return in 2025.
The Falcons lost nine letterwinners from the 2024 squad, including Cusimano, who was the MVC’s Defender of the Year. Alberto Anaya, who scored 53 career points, was named to the All-MVC First Team in each of the last two seasons, while goalkeeper Brendan Graves was named to the all-league second team.
An impressive streak will come to an end in the Falcons’ 2025 regular-season opener. Graves has played every second of BGSU’s last 60 matches, as no other Falcon ‘keeper has been between the posts since Oct. 22, 2021.
As mentioned, the BGSU roster will feature 15 newcomers, and that group includes seven transfers.
Junior goalkeeper Enzo Gil started 37 matches over the past two seasons at Lindenwood Univ., and was named to the All-Ohio Valley Conference Second Team in both years. He joins fellow ‘keepers Ball and Schutte on the BG roster.
Defender Tim Kozulap joined the Falcons in time for the Spring 2025 semester. He played in a total of 20 matches over the last two seasons at Robert Morris Univ., helping the Colonials to the Horizon League Tournament title in 2024.
Joshua Saavedra was the Northeast Conference Rookie of the Year in 2023 at Long Island Univ. He helped the Sharks to NEC championships and NCAA Tournament berths in each of the last two years, and had 24 points, including eight goals, in that time.
Sophomore Bradley Poppell spent the 2024 campaign at Air Force, while graduate students Giovanni Soares and Caio Tascheto join the Falcons from William Carey Univ. and Newman (Kansas) Univ., respectively. Both Soares and Tascheto come to Northwest Ohio with four years of collegiate experience under their belts.
Aiden Messinger enters his sixth year of collegiate soccer, after playing in a total of 83 matches for Spring Arbor (Mich.) Univ. and earning all-league honors in each of the last two seasons.
Junior Michael Lindh, who has played for the BGSU club team, officially joins the varsity roster in the fall of ’25, while seven freshmen also have joined the squad. That group includes Adin Ibrahimovic (Erie, Pa.), Tyson McCoy (Ann Arbor, Mich.), Namik Mehic (Fort Wayne, Ind.), Diego Ramirez (South Lyon, Mich.), Caue Ramos (Olinda, Brazil), Xavier Sims (Blacklick, Ohio) and Sawyer Wilbanks (Lewis Center, Ohio).
Falcon fans get their first chance to see the 2025 club in action on Friday (Aug. 8), as BGSU meets Dayton in a scrimmage at 5:00 p.m. at Cochrane Stadium.
BG’s three scrimmages include another home matchup, vs. Purdue Fort Wayne on the following Friday, Aug. 15. The regular-season schedule begins with a home match vs. IU Indianapolis on Thursday, Aug. 21.
BGSU finished the 2024 season with an overall record of 12-6-2, and the Falcons went 4-3-1 in their second season in the MVC, tying for third in the then nine-team league. The Orange and Brown picked up wins over UIC and Drake to advance to the championship match of the league tournament, before falling in overtime to Evansville.
For more information on the BGSU men’s soccer program, follow the Falcons on Twitter/X (@BGSU_Athletics and @BGSUMSoccer), Instagram (bgfalcons and bgsumsoccer) and Facebook (BGMensSoccer) as well as on the web right here at BGSUFalcons.com.
This article was published by Bowling Green Falcons on 2025-08-06 13:08:00
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