PEORIA, Ill. -- After wrapping up the longest home stand since 2010 and playing eight of the last 11 at Renaissance Coliseum, the Bradley Volleyball team hits the road for the first time in almost three weeks with road contests at Southern Illinois (Friday) and at Evansville (Saturday).
The Braves (5-9 overall, 0-2 MVC) head into the first conference road swing of the year looking for their first league win of the season. Southern Illinois (10-5 overall, 1-1 MVC) leads the all-time series 40-18, but Bradley is 2-2 in its last four trips to Carbondale, Ill., heading into Friday's 7 p.m. matchup at Davies Gym.
Bradley holds a 26-21 advantage in the all-time series with Evansville (6-10 overall, 0-2 MVC) after the home team won each contest last year. The Purple Aces have won their last four home matches against the Braves to pull even in the series 11-11 in matches played in Evansville. First serve from the Carson Center is set for 6 p.m. Saturday night.
Links to live stats for both matches will be available at BradleyBraves.com and Friday's outing at Southern Illinois will be available on ESPN3. The Valley on ESPN3 is available through WatchESPN.com and the WatchESPN app.
Notes | The Valley on ESPN3 | Live Stats | Twitter Updates (@BradleySIDLive)
Friday's match against Southern Illinois marks the halfway point of the regular-season schedule for Bradley and also starts a stretch in which the Braves play five of the next seven away from home. Bradley's eight home matches are the most in the MVC heading into the weekend and the Braves have played a league-low two true road matches.
Freshman Allison Turner (Wildwood, Mo./Lafayette) has led Bradley in kills in each of the first two Missouri Valley Conference matches after tallying a match-high 13 kills Tuesday against Northern Iowa. Turner is hitting .260 and averaging 3.17 kills per set in Valley play after she averaged 2.33 kills per set with a .167 attack percentage in non-conference action.
The last time Bradley won its MVC road opener was just two years ago, when the Braves rallied from two sets down to top Southern Illinois in five sets at Davies Gym in the first conference road match of 2013. Bradley had not rallied from two sets down since 2011 (also vs. SIU) prior to the win at SIU in 2013 and that victory marked the first road win for the Braves when dropping the first two sets since Sept. 10, 1999.
Freshmen continue to provide a bulk of the scoring for Bradley, with the newcomers accounting for almost 53 percent of the team's kills and nearly 51 percent of the squad's blocks. Three of the top five in kills for the Braves are freshmen and the top five are all underclassmen. Sophomores and freshmen have combined to tally over 83 percent of the team's kills and just under 75 percent of the blocks this fall.
A freshman has led the team in kills in 11 of the last 13 matches and the newcomers have accounted for 11 of Bradley's 15 double-digit kill efforts this year.
The Braves follow up the two-match road swing with a three-game home stand which opens Friday, Oct. 9 with a 7 p.m. matchup against Indiana State at Renaissance Coliseum.
