Bradley’s season came to a close at the hands of Drake on Thursday night at the TaxSlayer Center in Moline, as a second-half comeback bid fell short in a 71-56 loss.
Despite entering the matchup as the No. 10 seed with a 1-17 conference record, Bradley came to the Quad Cities with a ‘why not us’ mentality, while trying to defend their Hoops in the Heartland title.
“We had nothing to lose,” freshman guard Caroline Waite said. “We had everything it took and thought it was going to come together at just the right time.”
However, the seventh seeded Bulldogs, who lost to Bradley in last season’s title game, had other plans for this matchup.
Drake set the tone early with a 6-0 run to open the scoring before Bradley responded with a 5-0 spurt. The Bulldogs punched back with an 8-0 stretch, propelling themselves to an 18-10 lead after the opening quarter.
The second quarter didn’t prove to be kind to the Braves, as BU couldn’t narrow the deficit lower than 10 after Drake’s Sarah Gueldner knocked down a triple in the opening possession of the frame.
While the Braves failed to cut into the score, they held the Bulldogs within an arm’s reach — as a layup by freshman Callie Ziebell cut the lead down to 13 before both teams went scoreless for the final two and a half minutes of the quarter.
Bradley came out of the halftime locker room inspired.
After back-to-back layups from Drake forward Grace Berg pushed the deficit to 17 less than a minute into the second half, senior guard Tatum Koenig responded by knocking in a 3 and a layup on consecutive Braves possessions.
Later in the third, trailing 44-27, Bradley mounted a charge, ripping off an 11-2 stretch — highlighted by a Waite trey that trimmed the lead to eight points; the lowest since the first half.
Bradley entered the fourth quarter within striking distance of an upset, trailing by nine, but that changed quickly, as the Bulldogs scored the first 13 points of the frame. The Braves were held without a field goal until Koenig knocked in a mid-range jumper with 4:11 remaining.
“We came out of the [quarter break], we were down nine,” Gorski said. “We had a turnover, they hit a bucket and that killed our momentum right there … We just didn’t execute and couldn’t get our momentum on offense.”
The Braves failed to mount a second comeback charge, sending Drake to Friday’s quarterfinals to battle No. 2 Missouri State.
“I just think we needed a better start because we did fight back,” Koenig, who scored 10 points with four rebounds, said. “The second half, we had all the pieces there, things were falling for us better.”
With the loss, the Braves finish a rocky campaign 4-24. While Bradley may desire to swiftly put it behind them, they come away with lessons learned.
“We’re a pretty young team, and the whole season we went through a lot of learning curves,” Koenig said. “This whole season, we stayed together. That was the biggest takeaway — we never got down on each other, we always gave our full effort … A lot of our young players grew as players and people.”
The Braves were steered by that youth throughout the contest, as underclassmen scored 40 of the squad’s 56 points, highlighted by 14 from sophomore forward Isis Fitch and 12 from Waite.
“It’s easy for a young team to shut down and let adversity really affect us,” Koenig said. “We just need to be able to respond better. I think that’s something that’s going to be improved on for next year … I think that’s really going to show next year.”
