ST. LOUIS, Mo. -- Bradley Women's Golf was picked to finish second at next week's Missouri Valley Conference Championship according to a pre-championship poll of the league coaches announced by the league office Wednesday afternoon.
 
The Braves received three first-place votes and a total of 88 points to edge third-place Southern Illinois (87 points) for second in the pre-championship vote of the conference coaches.  Three-time defending MVC champion Wichita State earned five of the 10 first-place votes to finish first with 93 points. 
 
The MVC Championship will be held Sunday, Monday and Tuesday at the par-72 Dalhousie Golf Club in Cape Girardeau, Mo.  Sunday and Monday's action will get underway with 10 a.m. tee times, while Tuesday's final round will tee off at 9 a.m.  BradleyBraves.com will provide links to live scoring for all three rounds. 
 
Bradley finished third at last year's MVC Championship in Chicago, Ill., and heads into the Valley Championship off a victory after claiming the top spot at Bradley Spring Invitational at WeaverRidge Golf Club earlier this month in historic fashion.  The Braves turned in two of the three lowest rounds in school history to win the Bradley Spring Invite and the team's 54-hole total of 883 broke the school record by 13 strokes. 
 
The Braves have placed in the top two in each of their last three tournaments heading into the conference championship.  Last year's third-place finish at the MVC Championship was Bradley's best showing since 2013 (3rd). 
 
Junior Ally Scaccia (Arlington Heights, Ill./Prospect) has posted three consecutive top-10 finishes after claiming medalist honors at the Bradley Spring Invitational.  Scaccia owns a 73.78 stroke average over the last three tournaments and her season average of 76.03 ranks fifth in the MVC.  She is now fifth in school history with 67 career sub-80 rounds as she capped her Bradley Spring Invite medalist title with a career-best three-under 69.  Scaccia narrowly missed earning All-MVC honors last season, finishing sixth at the 2016 MVC Championship.
 
Freshman Taylor Ledwein (New Prague, Minn./New Prague) owns the best average (76.06) among freshman in the MVC and her season average ranks second among freshman marks in program history behind Danielle Lemek's freshman record of 75.42 set in 2012-13.  Ledwein, who carded a four-under 68 in the opening round of the Bradley Spring Invitational, is tied with Scaccia for the team lead with 26 sub-80 rounds and is two from matching Lemek's freshman record of 28 rounds in the 70's or better.
 
Sophomore Frankie Saban (Orland Park, Ill./Carl Sanburg) has been solid all spring, firing 13 of 15 rounds in the 70's since the fall.  She owns a 75.93 stroke average this spring, which ranks second on the team, and is nearly three and a half strokes better this semester than she was in the first semester.  Saban's 22 sub-80 rounds gives Bradley three individuals with 22 or more rounds in the 70's or better in the same season for the first time in program history. 
 
Fellow sophomore Chloe Horton (Coral Gables, Fla./Ransom Everglades) is one of four Braves to play in all 31 rounds in 2016-17 as the group will likely all break the Bradley season mark for rounds played of 32.  One of four Bradley players to rank in the top 20 in the MVC in stroke average, Horton's season average of 78.10 is fourth on the team and 19th in the league standings. 
 
Junior Grace Henderson (Peachtree Corners, Ga./Blessed Trinity) is the only other Brave besides Scaccia to have previously played in a Valley Championship.  Henderson has been in the Bradley lineup in each of the last four tournaments and owns a 78.17 stroke average during that span, compared to an 80.23 average prior to the Rio Verde Invitational where paced the Braves.  She has played as part of Bradley's lineup in six of her nine tournaments this season.