PEORIA, Ill. -- The Bradley softball team will spend the final weekend before the start of the regular-season Missouri Valley Conference schedule in Fayetteville, Ark., where the Braves will play four games against teams which advanced to last year's NCAA Tournament during the double round-robin Razorback Invitational Saturday and Sunday.
Bradley (7-12 overall) will travel to the state of Arkansas for the first time since playing in the rain-shortened 2009 Razorback Invitational and will play two games against both Mississippi Valley State (2-13 overall) and tournament-host Arkansas (15-5 overall) over the weekend.
Saturday's 11 a.m. game against Mississippi Valley State will be the first meeting between the two teams and will mark the fourth game all-time for the Braves against a Southwestern Athletic Conference member. Bradley is 3-0 all-time against the current members of the SWAC with the Braves topping Alabama State 7-6 on Feb. 25, 2012 in Woodstock, Ga., in the last meeting with a SWAC foe. BU will also face Mississippi Valley State Sunday at 10 a.m.
Arkansas is receiving votes in the national polls and was ranked as high as 24th last week. Bradley will take on the Razorbacks Saturday at 4 p.m. and again Sunday at 12:30 p.m. The Braves fell in the only previous matchup with Arkansas back during the 2009 campaign in the last trip to Fayetteville, Ark.
BradleyBraves.com will provide links to live stats for all four games. A subscription video stream for the two games against Arkansas will be available through RazorVision (ArkansasRazorbacks.com).
The Braves have gotten off to strong starts this season, outscoring foes 16-5 in the first inning of games this spring. In fact, Bradley has outscored teams 56-39 in the first three innings and is a perfect 5-0 on the year when holding a lead after four innings. Last season, the Braves scored 42.8 percent of their runs in the first three innings, but have upped that 62.2 percent of the squad's runs in the first three frames in 2014. Bradley owns a .304 batting average in the first three innings of games this year.
Senior Madeline Lynch-Crumrine (Sedro-Woolley, Wash./Sedro-Woolley) earned a pair of victories in the final two games of the Citrus Classic for the Braves and is 4-2 with a 2.36 ERA in her last eight appearances. She broke the Bradley career record for relief appearances (39), earning the win with one inning of scoreless work out of the bullpen against Syracuse Saturday. Lynch-Crumrine has moved into fifth in career wins at Bradley and needs two innings to become the fourth Brave with 400 career innings.
Fellow senior Alex Chandler (Needles, Calif./Needles) continues to climb the Bradley career home run list and enters the weekend tied for fifth in school history after hitting her 13th career dinger against Fordham Sunday. She is two home runs out of the top three and three short of matching the career record of 16 shared by Alycia Bachkora and Brittany Mynsberge.
Senior Mariah Cole (Springfield, Ill./Chatham Glenwood) is hitting a team-best .342 on the year, boasting a .433 average (13-for-30) over the last 14 games. She is hitting .556 with runners on base and already has four times as many walks as she had the entire 2013 season.
Following the Razorback Invitational, Bradley will open Missouri Valley Conference play with a three-game series at Missouri State March 15 & 16.
