PEORIA, Ill. -- The Bradley women's golf team will host a spring tournament for the fourth consecutive year and sixth time in seven years Friday and Saturday as the Braves welcome seven other squads to WeaverRidge Golf Club for the Bradley Invitational.
The 54-hole, two-day event will feature two rounds Friday at the par-72 WeaverRidge Golf Club and open with an 8 a.m. shotgun start. Saturday's final round will also feature a shotgun start and is scheduled to tee off at 8:30 a.m.
Familiar opponents help make up the eight-team field, with Missouri Valley Conference rivals Evansville, Indiana State and Loyola joining in-state foes Illinois-Chicago, SIU Edwardsville and Western Illinois. South Dakota is the only team not from the MVC or the state of Illinois in the tournament.
The last two Bradley Invitational individual champs will be in this year's field with Evansville's Kayla Katterhenry returning after claiming top individual honors at last year's rain-shortened event at Pekin Country Club. Bradley junior Danielle Lemek (Doniphan, Neb./Doniphan-Trumbull) won medalist honors last time the Braves played at WeaverRidge Golf Club in the spring of 2013 as a freshman.
Lemek is coming off medalist honors at the Bearcat Spring Classic and has finished in the top 10 in three of her last four outings. The top rated player in the MVC with a 73.24 stroke average, Lemek is the only player in program history to have three seasons with 20 or more sub-80 rounds and enters the weekend with the longest consecutive streak of sub-80 rounds in program history at 27. She has finished in the top 10 in five of eight tournaments this year and has a streak of 22 consecutive top-20 showings.
Junior Jenna Roadley (Winnipeg, Manitoba/Sturgeon Heights) tied for 17th to lead the Braves at last year's Bradley Invitational and has finished in the top 20 in both of her appearances at the Bradley Invite. She tied for 12th in 2013 at WeaverRidge and has been Bradley's second-best performer in each of the last two events this spring. Roadley is 15th in school history with 35 career sub-80 rounds and is three rounds in the 70's or better from passing Kelly Dillon for 12th on the all-time list.
Fellow junior Allison Walsh (Mt. Prospect, Ill./Mt. Prospect) has also performed well at the Bradley Invitational, tying for 17th at the Bradley Invite as a freshman in 2013.
Freshman Ally Scaccia (Arlington Heights, Ill./Prospect) has been among Bradley's top three finishers in all eight tournament this season and is second on the squad with 14 rounds in the 70's. She needs six sub-80 rounds to become just the fourth freshman in program history to card 20 or more sub-80 rounds.
In addition to Scaccia, fellow freshmen Grace Henderson (Peachtree Corners, Ga./Blessed Trinity and Abby Wellens (Cincinnati, Ohio/Ursuline Academy) will both be playing in their first home tournaments of their Bradley careers.
The Bradley women's golf team will have its final outing before the Missouri Valley Conference Championship (April 19-21) at the Indiana State Spring Invite April 12 & 13 in Terre Haute, Ind.
