PEORIA, Ill. -- The Bradley women's basketball team will wrap up the 2014-15 home schedule Sunday with a 2 p.m. game against I-74 rival Illinois State at Renaissance Coliseum, looking to sweep the regular-season series from the Redbirds and win the fourth consecutive game in the series.
Sunday's game will be the final home contest for Bradley senior Michelle Young (Woodbury, Minn./Woodbury), who is the all-time leading scorer in Renaissance Coliseum history with 486 career points. The only senior on the roster for the Braves, Young will be recognized in a pre-game ceremony as Bradley wraps up the home schedule against Illinois State for the first time since 1996.
BradleyBraves.com will provide a subscription video stream of Sunday's game, in addition to live stats and audio stream of the WIRL 1290 AM/102.7 FM broadcast.
Bradley has won three straight games in the series by a total of six points and each of the last three meetings between the Braves and Redbirds at Renaissance Coliseum have had a final margin of two points. Overall, Bradley has won four consecutive regular-season meetings by a total of eight points. In each of the last three Bradley victories in the series, Illinois State has had a chance to tie or take the lead in the closing seconds, but the Braves have had steals in the final four seconds of each matchup.
Young moved into 16th on Bradley's career scoring list with seven points Friday night against Southern Illinois and is poised to climb further on the all-time scoring chart in her final home game. One of 30 national candidates for the Senior CLASS Award this season, Young needs seven points to pass Dena Williams for 15th in career scoring at Bradley and is nine points from moving ahead of Devyn Flanagan for 14th on The Hilltop.
Bradley will be playing its 15th home game of the season, which will tie for the second most in the MVC this season and mark the most home games since the 2011-12 team played the 15th home contest of the year in the opening round of the Women's Basketball Invitational. The Braves have not played 15 regular-season home contests since 1984-85.
Sophomore Leti Lerma (Muscatine, Iowa/Muscatine) had 19 points on 8-of-14 shooting and also had a team-high eight rebounds Friday against Southern Illinois. Lerma is shooting an impressive 52 percent from the field in her last 14 games at Renaissance Coliseum and has averaged 7.8 points per game in her last 18 home outings dating back to last season.
Freshman Danielle Brewer (Coatesville, Ind.) is 5-for-10 from three-point range in her last three home games and is averaging 9.7 points per game in those contests after scoring a season-best 15 points Friday against Southern Illinois.
Fellow freshman Tamya Sims (Milwaukee, Wis./Oak Creek) has 33 blocks on the year, two short of the most by a Bradley freshman since Dena Williams had 52 rejections as a freshman in 2001-02. Sims needs four more blocks for the best season total by a Brave since Sonya Harris tallied 62 blocks in 2009-10.
The Braves close out the 2014-15 regular season schedule on the road, opening a two-game road swing Thursday with a 7 p.m. game at Drake.
