Volleyball Opens Final Home Stand With I-74 Rival Illinois St.

Volleyball 11/9/2017 12:00:00 PM

PEORIA, Ill. -- Bradley Volleyball hosts I-74 rival Illinois State Saturday in a 7 p.m. match at Renaissance Coliseum in the first of a three-match home stand to close the 2017 regular-season schedule for the Braves.

After playing six of the last eight matches on the road, Bradley returns to Renaissance Coliseum for a three-match home stand which starts with Saturday night's matchup against the Redbirds. The Braves most recently closed the 2014 regular-season schedule with a three-match home stand, but the 2017 season marks just the second time in the last 17 years Bradley will play the final three regular-season matches at home.

Bradley head coach Carol Price-Torok will have a pre-match "Chalk Talk" at 6:30 p.m. in the Zobrist Room open to all fans and the Braves will be signing autographs following the contest.

Saturday's matchup with the Redbirds will be available on ESPN3 as part of the MVC media rights agreement with ESPN. The Valley On ESPN3 can be viewed through WatchESPN.com and the WatchESPN app.

Junior Erica Haslag had a match-high 17 kills in the season's first meeting with Illinois State at Redbird Arena last month and is closing in on the fourth 500-kill season in program history, entering Saturday's match 26 kills short of the mark.

Haslag served up a career-best five aces last Friday at Loyola to go with team highs of 14 kills and 18 digs as she posted the first outing by a Brave of at least 14 kills, 18 digs and five or more aces since Lindsay Chang (19 kills, 5 aces & 21 digs) against Evansville on Oct. 31, 1998. For the first time in a decade Bradley has two players with 25 or more aces in a season with Haslag's 25 aces this fall second on the team.

While Haslag ranks among the national leaders in kills, Bradley has had a fairly balanced attack in 2017. The Braves have three individuals with 200 or more kills in a season for the first time since 2013 with sophomore Kathryn Graf owning 255 kills and senior Jamie Livaudais collecting 205 kills so far in her final year on The Hilltop.

Defensively, junior Yavianliz Rosado is closing on Bradley's single-season digs record and has headlined a group of three Braves with 300 or more digs. The last time the Braves had three players with 300 or more digs in the same season was 2001. Fellow junior Abby Ihrke has 287 digs this season and needs just 13 digs to give Bradley four individuals with 300 or more digs in the same season since 1990.

Rosado owns the Renaissance Coliseum season record with 301 digs in Bradley's 14 home matches to date. She has had 25 digs in five of the last nine matches and her 589 digs in 2017 are 18 from breaking the school season record of 606 digs set by Stacy Besjak in 1985. Rosado was seventh in the nation and third in the Missouri Valley Conference in total digs through matches of Nov. 5.

As a team, Bradley's 2,012 digs this fall gives the Braves just their third 2,000-dig season in the last 27 years and the ninth-best season total in school history. With at least three matches remaining on the regular-season schedule, Bradley has a chance for just the fourth season in program history with 2,200 digs.

Following Saturday's outing against Illinois State, Bradley will play host to Evansville Friday, Nov. 17 in a 7 p.m. match at Renaissance Coliseum.

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