Originally published November 5, 2010
The Evansville Purple Aces were no match for the visiting Braves as Bradley cruised to its first Missouri Valley Conference win of the season.
Bradley took the match in four sets 25-21, 17-25, 25-22, 25-19.
The victory marked the first winning streak for the team since the first two games of the year.
The Braves brought their overall record to 6-19 and improved to 1-11 in the MVC.
Midway through the first set, Bradley held a slight advantage at 17-15. Then freshman Amy Angelos took over.
Angelos sparked a 4-1 run for the Braves that helped them take control. She had five of her ten kills in the first set and Bradley went on to win 25-21.
In the second set, Evansville hit a blistering .441 and took control early. The Braves couldn’t recover and dropped the set 17-25.
Bradley began the third set slow, but the Braves got big points when they needed it.
After a Bradley attack error, the Purple Aces led 19-16. Angelos and junior Annie Cave answered with back-to-back kills to begin a 7-2 Bradley run that Evansville could not counter.
The Braves won the third set 25-22 to take a commanding two games to one lead in the match.
The fourth frame ended the night as Bradley never trailed and went on to win 25-19. Evansville pulled within four points at 20-16 late in the match, but junior Megan Schmidt and sophomore Madelyn Ervin each recorded a pair of kills to end the Purple Aces chances of a comeback.
Schmidt led the Braves with 14 kills; while freshman Lauren Zerante chipped in 12 of her own. Junior Rachelle Dejean recorded a match-high 23 digs.
Zerante said the team is still growing together.
“As a team, we just want to go out and relax and play hard,” she said. “We have the talent, it’s just up to us to put it together and get things going. So we’re going to really focus on playing confident and being aggressive.”
