PEORIA, Ill. -- Senior
Leti Lerma (Muscatine, Iowa/Muscatine) collected 21 points, 13 rebounds, six assists and four steals in the final home game of her Bradley career to help the Braves to a 70-59 victory over I-74 rival Illinois State Saturday afternoon at Renaissance Coliseum.
Lerma, who became the all-time leading scorer in Renaissance Coliseum history, turned in the first 20-point, 10-rebound, six-assist and four-steal outing for a Brave since Tammy Van Oppen's triple-double effort against Southern Illinois on Dec. 31, 1996.
The victory locked up Bradley's best finish in the Missouri Valley Conference at 7-11 since 2012-13 and the Braves earned the #7 seed in next week's Valley Tournament, where the Braves will face #10 seed Loyola Thursday at 7 p.m. in the opening round at the iWireless Center in Moline, Ill.
"It's always nice to win your last home game," said Bradley head coach
Andrea Gorski. "It was a good all-around team effort today. We were able to keep the turnovers down against a team that likes to pressure along with getting to the free throw line."
Bradley (11-18 overall, 7-11 MVC) led 22-21 at the end of the first quarter with Lerma scoring eight of her game-high 21 points in the opening 10 minutes. The Braves held Illinois State (7-22 overall, 4-14 MVC) to 4-of-15 shooting in the second period and built a 35-29 halftime lead. After the Redbirds grabbed a 25-22 advantage early in the second, Bradley answered with a 10-0 run and held ISU without a field goal for a five-minute stretch.
In the third quarter, Bradley forced five Illinois State turnovers and just 4-of-9 from the field. Lerma helped spark a late push, assisting a
Danielle Brewer (Coatesville, Ind.) three with 1:30 left in the period and adding a layup during a 7-0 run for the Braves which extended the lead to 14 (53-39). Three ISU free throws in the closing seconds of the period trimmed Bradley's advantage to 53-42 heading to the fourth.
Illinois State pulled within four points (55-51) nearing the six-minute mark of the fourth period. Brewer pushed the lead to six (57-51) with a layup and added a free throw a minute later. Lerma found freshman
Chelsea Brackmann (New Berlin, Wis./Eisenhower) underneath for an easy hoop closing in on two minutes to play. The Bradley lead stood at 10 with 1:53 remaining after Brackmann split a pair of free throws.
After cutting the deficit to eight (65-57) with 1:10 left, Illinois State was 0-for-3 from the field with one turnover in the final 70 seconds and Bradley made 5-of-6 free throws down the stretch to close out the 70-59 victory.
Lerma made 7-of-13 from the field in the game to pace the Braves and collected 13 points, eight rebounds, three assists and four steals in the second half. The double-double was the 11th of the season for Lerma and gives her most double-doubles in a season by a Brave since Carrie Coffman's school record 20 in 1994-95.
Brewer made all three of her three-point attempts and finished with 14 points, while Junior
Anneke Schlueter (Ulm, Germany/Max-Weber-Schule) was 2-for-3 from beyond the arc in a 12-point effort to help pace Bradley.
Hannah Green and Brechelle Beachum led Illinois State in scoring with 14 points each. Katrina Beck joined the pair in double figures with 13 points.
Bradley will travel to Moline, Ill., for the MVC Tournament where the Braves will face #10 seed Loyola Thursday at 7 p.m. in the opening round. The winner will advance to Friday's 6 p.m. quarterfinal against #2 seed Northern Iowa.