WICHITA, Kan. -- The Bradley offense picked a bad day to suffer its first shutout of the season as Illinois State blanked the Braves, 3-0, in the opening round of the 2010 State Farm Missouri Valley Conference Tournament Tuesday afternoon at Eck Stadium.

In a pitching dual between Illinois State's Corey Maines (6-3) and Bradley's Patrick Cooper (4-5), Redbirds leftfielder Anthony Ruffolo was the offensive star.  Twice picking up his teammates after squeeze bunt attempts, Ruffolo drove home the game's first run with a ground rule double in the third and the second run with an RBI single in the seventh.  Third baseman Ryan Court followed Ruffolo's second hit with an RBI single to complete the scoring.

Following Ruffolo's go-ahead hit, the Braves had a chance to pull even in the fifth after Mike Tauchman led off with a double and moved to third on Jordan Colvin's sacrifice, but David Compitello went down swinging and Jason Leblebijian grounded out to second to end Bradley's most significant scoring threat of the game.

Maines earned the win by scattering five Bradley hits in 7.0 innings of work, while allowing one walk and striking out four.  Lefty reliever Ryan Copeland earned his third save of the season by retiring all six Bradley hitters he faced.  The performance of the two Redbird hurlers overshadowed that of Cooper, who matched his season-high with eight strikeouts in 6.1 innings.  Although he allowed 10 hits, Cooper continued to work out of trouble until tiring in the seventh.

Tauchman (2-for-3) and junior centerfielder Brian Martin (2-for-4) combined for four of Bradley's five hits.  Martin is now 9-for-14 on the season against Illinois State.

Illinois State will face No. 3 seed Indiana State in Wednesday's 4 p.m. game, while Bradley will face elimination in Wednesday's 9 a.m. game against No. 6 seed Creighton.  The Sycamores started Tuesday's action by rallying for an 8-7 victory in 10 innings against Creighton.