With just two weekends remaining in the 2019 season, the Bradley volleyball team is on solid footing as it begins to make its final approach to the Missouri Valley Conference tournament.
Last weekend, Bradley split a weekend-homestand with Drake and league-leading Northern Iowa. The Braves defeated the Bulldogs in straight sets on Nov. 8 before falling to the Panthers in five sets the next night.
“I think the biggest thing is the girls were playing with confidence,” head coach Carol Price-Torok said of the Northern Iowa match. “Playing the whole entire match, not just a point here and a point there, or one set here and one set there.”
Price-Torok also credited the team’s fight in the second and third sets, which were both decided by two points, with Bradley emerging victorious in both.
Sophomore Hannah Thompson led Bradley’s attack against Drake with 12 kills, while sophomore Rachel Pranger tallied 17 kills in the loss to UNI. Braves junior Sara Maddox was a frequent flier in the two matches, recording a combined total of 19 kills.
“I think our team did a really good job defensively,” Maddox said. “Getting the ball up and giving the hitters multiple chances. That’s part of all of our kill success is our defense allows us to swing really hard at the ball all of the time. We know that they’ll cover us if we do get blocked, and give us multiple chances to get that kill.”
The Braves, who sit at third place in the conference standings, will travel to second-place Loyola tonight and Valparaiso tomorrow night. The trip will consist of rematches for the Braves, who defeated the Crusaders in straight sets before suffering the same fate at the hands of the Ramblers in late October.
“We didn’t feel like we had a great showing against Loyola the first time around,” Price-Torok said. “That’s still kind of in the back of our minds, that we want to go give them our best. Playing on the road is just tough in general, no matter where you’re playing, so making sure we’re playing clean and organized volleyball.”
Earlier this week, the team was able to cut loose and showcase some creativity in taking over the NCAA Volleyball Instagram account. The team spent Tuesday posting to the account’s story, giving its 263,000 followers a look behind the scenes of the program.
“We have a lot of fun doing that,” Maddox said. “It’s just fun to show people what we do and what our lives are like off the court. Just talking about what we do and answering questions, we love being able to just show people what our lives actually are.”
Bradley (13-12, 9-5) will play tonight at 6 p.m. at (19-8, 12-2) Loyola, with tomorrow night’s match against (11-17, 6-8) Valparaiso scheduled for a 5 p.m. first serve.
