PEORIA, Ill. -- The Bradley volleyball team wraps up the 2012 season with three consecutive road matches, kicking off the final road swing of the year Friday at Evansville (7 p.m.) and continuing the trip Saturday with a 7 p.m. match at Southern Illinois.
The Braves (9-17 overall, 3-12 MVC) look to end the season on a high note and are coming off a four-set win against Drake Saturday to conclude the home portion of the schedule. Bradley enters the weekend a half-game behind Evansville in the MVC standings and swept the Purple Aces last month at Renaissance Coliseum.
BradleyBraves.com will provide links to live stats for both weekend matches.
Bradley holds a 25-17 lead in the all-time series with Evansville (8-19 overall, 3-11 MVC), which includes an 11-8 record in matches played in Evansville, Ind. The teams have split the last four matchups and have not had a match go to five sets since 1998.
Southern Illinois (19-6 overall, 9-5 MVC) is fourth in the Valley standings entering a Friday night home match against Northern Iowa. BU rallied to force a deciding fifth set in the first matchup with the Salukis this season, but SIU took the fifth set 15-9 to hand the Braves their fourth five-set loss of the year.
Junior Alise Tupuritis (Des Plaines, Ill./Maine West) leads Bradley with a 2.80 kills-per-set average and her 277 kills this fall are the most by a Brave since Amy Reichel had 302 kills in 2009. With fellow junior Amy Angelos (Waukegan, Ill./Waukegan) needing just six kills to reach 275 for the year, Bradley will likely have two individuals with 275 kills or more in the same season for the first time since 2006.
In addition, senior Madelyn Ervin (Lewis Center, Ohio/Olentangy) is five kills from reaching 200 and sophomore Courtney Keefe (Lemont, Ill./Lemont) is 11 kills from the 200-kill mark as BU looks to have four individuals notch 200 or more kills in the same season for the first time since 2003.
Keefe needs five kills and 19 digs to become the first Bradley player since Kelly Niemeyer in 2006 with 200 kills and 300 digs in a season. Over the last 20 years, a total of 10 BU players have reached those marks a total of 16 times, but Keefe is looking to become just the fifth underclassmen with 200 kills and 300 digs in the last two decades. Lindsay Chang was the last underclassmen to reach those marks, doing so in 1998.
The Braves have served up a season-best in aces each of the last two Saturdays, highlighting Saturday's victory against Drake with 10 aces. BU's 10 aces were the most since tallying 12 aces in back-to-back matches in September 2009 and the most by Bradley in a league match since Sept. 21, 2007. Sophomore Allie Falter (Lincoln, Neb./Pius X), who is two blocks short of the first 100-block season by a Brave since 2004, had a career-best four aces in Saturday's win against the Bulldogs.
Bradley closes the 2012 season Saturday, Nov. 17 with a 7 p.m. match at preseason MVC favorite Northern Iowa.
