PEORIA, Ill. -- The Bradley women's basketball team will play its lone exhibition before the 2014-15 season opener, when the Braves welcome nearby foe Eureka College to Renaissance Coliseum Friday for a 7 p.m. matchup.
Friday's contest will be the first meeting between Bradley and Eureka since the 1980-81 season and the first time the two schools will face off in an exhibition contest. The Braves and Red Devils played twice a year between the 1975-76 and 1980-81 seasons with Bradley winning nine of 12 matchups during that six-year stretch. Bradley has an eight-game win streak in the series and the Braves were 5-1 during in home contests against Eureka.
Bradley is 17-0 in exhibition games against other collegiate teams and the Braves have won 18 consecutive exhibition outings since the team's summer trip to Europe prior to the 2004-05 school year.
The first 200 children in attendance will receive free temporary tattoos and halftime will feature a special performance by Kaboom!
Eight of Bradley's nine newcomers will likely make their Hilltop debuts Friday against Eureka. With only three returning letterwinners, the Braves will rely on newcomers to step up early on. Bradley has nine newcomers on the roster for the first time since 2001-02 and has not had six freshmen since 2008-09. The Braves are the only Missouri Valley Conference team to have fewer than five upperclassmen.
Eureka returns the bulk of its lineup, including five of the top six scorers and a total of three starters, from last year's team which finished with a 17-9 overall record and was third in the St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference standings at 13-5 in 2013-14.
Live stats will be available at BradleyBraves.com
Headlining the group of returning players for the Braves is 2013-14 honorable mention All-MVC pick Michelle Young (Woodbury, Minn./Woodbury), who averaged a team-best 14.3 points per game as a junior. Young led the MVC in free throws made with 137 last season and was the fifth player in program history to collect 400 points and 55 or more steals in a season.
Junior Fantasia Vine (Wheaton, Ill./Wheaton North) was the most accurate three-point shooter on the squad at 36 percent and averaged 9.8 points and 3.6 rebounds per game over her final 20 contests.
Sophomore Leti Lerma (Muscatine, Iowa/Muscatine) averaged 6.9 points and 6.6 rebounds per game in league play and landed on the Valley's All-Freshman team after she collected 9.3 points and 7.9 boards per outing over the final seven games.
Junior college transfer Sameia Kendall (Kansas City, Kan./Raytown/Johnson County) will challenge for a starting spot in Bradley's backcourt after she earned honorable mention WBCA All-America honors as a sophomore and helped her team to back-to-back 30-2 seasons.
Sophomore transfer Charnelle Reed (Flossmoor, Ill./Homewood-Flossmoor/Western Illinois) will be eligible in 2014-15 after sitting out the 2013-14 campaign due to NCAA Division I transfer rules. Reed averaged 8.5 points per game and shot 40 percent from three-point range as a freshman at Western Illinois in 2012-13.
The Braves open the 2014-15 regular season with five consecutive road games, kicking off the season Friday, Nov. 14 with a 7 p.m. game at Women's Basketball Invitational defending champion Illinois-Chicago.
