In its first game in a week, the Bradley Women’s Basketball team lost 71-66 on the road at Valparaiso on Thursday night.
The Braves fell victim to 17 three-pointers by Valpo, which tied a program record. However, their undoing came from 19 turnovers, which led to 27 Valpo points.
“I thought not many of those were forced,” head coach Andrea Gorski said. “Usually, we take care of the ball much better than that, and we’d like to have a few of those back for sure.”
Only five Braves found the scoring column, three of which came in double figures. Junior Lasha Petree led the Braves in scoring with 27 points, followed by senior Gabi Haack with 16 points. Haack also made history as the 15th player in conference history to make 250 career three-pointers. Senior Nyjah White added a double-double with 12 points, 10 rebounds and a team high four assists.
The Braves shot about 42 percent from the floor on 62 field goal attempts and shot 33 percent from beyond the arc on 27 three-point attempts. However, there were too many misses on easy opportunities.
“We missed at the rim too much today,” Gorski said. “We were trying to attack the rim, but we got to finish those.”
There were signs of a blowout early as a 12-0 run powered the Braves to a 17-5 lead at the 3:37 mark of the first quarter. However, they failed to score for the remainder of the quarter, and allowed Valpo to close the gap to a 17-13 lead at the end of the quarter.
Bradley led by as many as seven points in the second quarter on two occasions, stretching their lead to 20-13 on a 3-pointer by junior Tatum Koenig and 23-16 on a three-point play from Petree. Valpo closed the gap and eventually tied the game at 25 with 3:35 left in the half. A layup from Petree with 53 seconds left in the half gave the Braves a 28-25 lead at the half.
It was a dogfight heading into the third quarter, which was defined by a pair of runs by both teams. A 12-2 Valpo run bolstered by four consecutive 3-pointers gave them the 43-41 lead with 3:56 remaining in the quarter, their first of the night up to that point. The Braves then responded with another 12-0 run to take a 53-43 lead. Like a heavyweight title fight, Valpo countered with an 8-0 run of their own to pull within 53-51 heading into the final quarter.
The Braves started the fourth quarter with a 3-pointer by Petree to take a 56-51 lead. Back-to-back 3-pointers by Valpo’s Shay Frederic and Lauren Gunn began a sequence that featured five lead changes. Valpo eventually took a 66-64 lead at the 3:05 mark of the fourth quarter after a layup by Gunn and led the rest of the way.
“They made some great individual plays down the stretch, hit some tough shots, and you know, we didn’t,” Gorski said. “Hats off to them.”
With the loss, Bradley now drops to 10-7 on the season and 6-4 in MVC play and have now lost three out of their last four games after previously posting a five-game winning streak. They’ll have a rematch at Valpo tonight. Tip-off is scheduled for 6 p.m.
