PEORIA, Ill. -- After a pair of second-place finishes in each of the first two tournaments of the season, the Bradley volleyball team looks to continue its early-season success Friday and Saturday at the Coastal Carolina Invitational in Conway, S.C.
The Braves are off to a 4-2 start to the year after posting 2-1 records in each of the first two weekends of the season. Bradley travels to the state of South Carolina for the first time since 1992 to take on first-time opponents Iona, Coastal Carolina and Gardner-Webb in the final weekend of competition before Missouri Valley Conference play.
BU opens tournament play Friday morning against Iona at 11 a.m. (CDT) and faces tournament-host Coastal Carolina Friday at 5 p.m. (CDT). The Braves close out tournament play Saturday at 10 a.m. against Gardner-Webb. Live stats for all three matches will be available at BradleyBraves.com and a video stream for Friday's match against Coastal Carolina will be available at the Big South Conference website (bigsouthsports.com).
Freshman setter Madison Kamp (Orland Park, Ill./Chicago Christian) was named MVC Freshman of the Week after earning all-tournament honors at last week's Akron Invitational. Kamp, who averaged 1.40 kills, 9.60 assists and 2.20 digs per set while hitting .406, was joined on the all-tournament team by sophomore middle blocker Amy Angelos (Waukegan, Ill./Waukegan).
Angelos, who entered last week's tournament with a career total of four aces, served up nine aces in the three matches in Akron, Ohio. She had made a total of eight serves the first week of the season, but tallied a career-best five aces to help highlight the four-set victory against St. Francis (Pa.) and earned Bradley Country Financial Scholar-Athlete of the Week honors for her efforts.
Sophomore Alise Tupuritis (Des Plaines, Ill./Maine West) leads the Braves with a 3.72 kills per set average and has led BU in kills in four of the first six matches. Senior Genevieve Dejean (Naperville, Ill./Neuqua Valley) has taken over the starting spot at libero and paces BU in digs at 3.55 per set.
Bradley head coach Jenny Maurer's 4-2 start to the year is the best by a first-year BU head coach since Annelle Griffin's 1975 squad started out 5-2. The Braves also look to continue their recent success on neutral courts after picking up their seventh consecutive neutral site victory Saturday against St. Francis. BU has not lost a neutral site contest since falling to Loyola-Chicago on Sept. 13, 2008 in DeKalb, Ill.
The trip to South Carolina also wraps up a stretch in which the Braves will have played six consecutive matches away from home. Bradley has not played six consecutive matches away from home in the same season since opening the 2004 campaign with six road and six neutral site tilts.
The Braves return home next weekend to open Missouri Valley Conference play, hosting Evansville (Sept. 16) and Southern Illinois (Sept. 17) at Renaissance Coliseum. Both matches are slated to start at 7 p.m.
