PEORIA, Ill. -- The Bradley softball team returns home for four of the final five regular-season games of the 2013 season as the Braves try to earn one of the final spots up for grabs in next week's Missouri Valley Conference Tournament.
Bradley (22-26 overall, 7-14 MVC) opens the week Tuesday with a 3 p.m. contest against Northern Iowa (22-24 overall, 12-8 MVC) at Laura Bradley Park and will play a Thursday game at I-74 rival Illinois State (28-19 overall, 13-7 MVC) at 5 p.m. in the final road tilt of the year. The Braves finish out the season at home Saturday and Sunday with a three-game series against Missouri State (19-27 overall, 10-11 MVC).
Five of eight spots in next week's Valley Tournament have been locked up, leaving Bradley among four teams still fighting for the final three tournament berths. Assuming all scheduled games are played, the Braves would need to win at least three of the remaining five games to catch eighth-place Wichita State (18-29 overall, 9-12 MVC) in the final league standings. The Shockers face Missouri State, which is currently three games ahead of BU in seventh, Tuesday night in Springfield, Mo., before Wichita State concludes the season with a three-game series at league-leading Creighton.
BradleyBraves.com will provide links to live stats for all five games on the schedule this week and will also feature a free video stream of all four home games.
Bradley will wrap up the regular season schedule at home for the sixth consecutive year and eighth time in the last nine campaigns. The weekend series against Missouri State will mark the fourth time the Braves and Bears have faced each other in the final series of the regular season. Bradley swept a home series from Missouri State to close the 2009 season, while Missouri State swept a series in Springfield, Mo., to conclude 2004 and the final home series at Laura Bradley Park in 2005.
The weekend series will also mark the final home games for Bradley senior pitcher Mackenzie Camp (Mapleton, Ill./Limestone), who will be recognized in a pre-game ceremony Sunday. Camp has matched a career-best with eight victories this spring and has a career-high 100 strikeouts. She is ninth in career innings pitched (358.1) on The Hilltop and recently moved into eighth in career strikeouts (247).
Sophomore Alyson Clemente (Murrieta, Calif./Murrieta Valley) tallied her team-leading 11th double of the season at Southern Illinois Sunday, giving her the most doubles by a Bradley player since Elizabeth Wilson had 11 two-baggers in 2007. Clemente's 11 doubles are tied for sixth in school history and she has helped Bradley collect 54 doubles this spring for the team's highest total since 2006 (56).
Clemente has helped pace a balanced BU attack, which boasts four players with 40 or more hits for the first time since 2004. Ten Bradley players have tallied 25 or more hits and the Braves have five players with 20 or more runs scored for the first time in program history.
The MVC Tournament will be played May 9-11 in Omaha, Neb., with the top eight teams in the final regular-season standings advancing to the single-elimination tournament.
