PEORIA, Ill. -- Bradley women's basketball will hit the road for the final time during the 2016-17 regular season this weekend, taking on Evansville (Friday) and Southern Illinois (Sunday) as the Braves try to stay ahead of the Purple Aces and catch SIU in the Missouri Valley Conference standings.
 
Winners of four of the last seven and five of nine, Bradley (10-16 overall, 6-9 MVC) heads into the final three games of the regular season a half game out of fifth-place in the Valley standings.  The Braves have won at least one road game against either Evansville or Southern Illinois in eight of the last 10 years, boasting a 12-8 combined road mark against the pair during that span. 
 
A win Friday (7 p.m.) against Evansville (9-16 overall, 4-10 MVC) would give Bradley its first sweep of the regular-season series against the Purple Aces since 2012-13 and guarantee the Braves at least a seventh-place finish in the regular season standings, which would be the team's best finish since 2012-13 (6th). 
 
Southern Illinois (12-13 overall, 6-8 MVC) is a half game ahead of Bradley in the Valley standings entering a Friday night home contest against Illinois State.  The 2 p.m. contest between the Braves and Salukis Sunday will mark first-year Bradley head coach Andrea Gorski's first trip to Carbondale, Ill., as head coach at her alma mater after spending the three previous seasons as Associate Head Coach at SIU. 
 
Both games will be available on ESPN3 as part of The Valley On ESPN3 and can be viewed through WatchESPN.com and the WatchESPN app.  In addition, BradleyBraves.com will provide links to live stats for both contests.  Friday's game will be broadcast on WIRL 1290 AM (www.1290wirl.com) with Ed Hammond providing play-by-play, while Sunday's game at Southern Illinois will air on WMBD 1470 AM/100.3 FM (www.1470wmbd.com).
 
Senior Leti Lerma (Muscatine, Iowa/Muscatine) had arguably one of the strongest performances of her career in the season's first matchup with Evansville, finishing with a career-high 24 points to go with 17 rebounds, one assist, one block and three steals in a 56-52 home win.  Lerma, who has averaged 12.2 points and 9.8 rebounds in six career games against the Purple Aces, enters the weekend needing 10 boards to become Bradley's all-time leading rebounder. 
 
The Valley's leading rebounder at 10.8 boards per game, Lerma's 270 rebounds rank as the sixth-best season total in school history and she needs 30 more rebounds for the third 300-rebound season in Bradley history and 22nd in the history of the MVC. 
 
Sophomore Vanessa Markert (Mt. Sterling, Ill./Brown County) scored a game-high 16 points Sunday against Wichita State to reach double figures for the seventh time in nine games.  She has averaged 12.6 points per game over the last 10 contests and needs 25 points to become the first Bradley underclassman with 300 points since Shronda Butts had 363 points as a sophomore in 2012-13.  In fact, only four Bradley freshmen or sophomores have reached 300 points in the last 11 seasons. 
 
Freshman Chelsea Brackmann (New Berlin, Wis./Eisenhower) is closing in on another milestone of her own, needing eight rebounds to break the Bradley freshman rebounding mark of 174 set by Heather Best in 1995-96.  Brackmann has joined Best as the only freshmen in program history with 200 points, 165 boards, 35 assists, 25 blocks and 15 or more steals.  Through games of Feb. 19, Brackmann and Joyner Holmes of Texas were the only freshmen in the nation to reach those marks. 
 
Following the road swing, Bradley will close out the 2016-17 regular-season schedule Saturday, March 4 at Renaissance Coliseum with a 2 p.m. contest against I-74 rival Illinois State.