Braves Face Iowa State In Second Round Of NIVC

Missouri State Athletics

Volleyball 11/30/2018 2:56:00 PM

AMES, Iowa -- Bradley Volleyball's historic season continues on with the Braves taking on Big 12 foe Iowa State in the second round of the National Invitational Volleyball Championship (NIVC) Friday in Ames, Iowa, after BU rallied to pull out a five-set victory over Bowling Green in the opening round of the tournament Thursday.

First serve between Bradley (24-8 overall) and Iowa State (17-13 overall), which tied for third in the Big 12 Conference regular-season standings, is set for 6:30 p.m. at Hilton Coliseum. A free video stream of Friday's matchup will be available through Cyclones.TV and BradleyBraves.com will provide links to live stats.

Iowa State owns a 3-0 lead in the all-time series with Bradley and the Braves have not faced the Cyclones since 1983. Bradley is 2-9 all-time against current members of the Big 12 Conference, with the last matchup against a Big 12 team falling in 2014 when the Braves faced Kansas in Denver, Colo. The Kansas match in 2014 is the only contest against a Big 12 squad for Bradley since a BU sweep of Oklahoma in 2002 at Loyola Marymount.

Defense has been Bradley's calling card in 2018 and Thursday's five-set thriller against Bowling Green was no different with the Braves tallying 119 digs. Currently second in the nation in digs per set (19.79), Bradley owns three of the top six single-match dig totals in the nation this season.

Thursday's win gave Bradley 24 victories on the season and the Braves will be shooting for their first 25-win season a 32-10 campaign in 1985. Bradley's 14-win improvement from last year now stands alone as the best in the country entering Friday's action. Four other squads have a 13-win improvement over last year, with only Northern Arizona and Tennessee still playing in the postseason.

Senior Yavianliz Rosado finished one dig short of matching her school single-match record of 42 digs to help highlight the win over Bowling Green with 41 digs. Rosado is the only player in the nation to have three performances of 40 or more digs this season. Her season dig total of 744 is second in the nation, in addition to ranking third among Missouri Valley Conference season marks. She has averaged 7.27 digs per set over the last seven matches and is 50 digs from breaking Bradley's career digs record.

Fellow senior Erica Haslag is coming off a season-best 29-kill performance and has had 20 or more kills in seven of the last nine outings. Haslag pushed her season kill total to 530 to match her total from 2017 and now owns two of the top three season kill totals in school history. She is the fourth player in Valley history to own two seasons with 530 or more kills. Haslag has averaged 5.26 kills per set over the last nine contests and has climbed into 10th in career kills in MVC history at 1.675.

Junior setter Hannah Angeli has record double-doubles in five of the last six matches and matched a career-high with four aces Thursday against Bowling Green to go with 46 assists and 20 digs. Her team-high 32 aces are the most at Bradley since 2013 and her 1,254 assists this season rank as the best total by a Brave since 2003.

Freshman Hannah Thompson turned in her team-best 20th double-double of the year against Bowling Green to join Jenny Pavlas (1997) as the only outside hitters in program history to collect 20 or more double-doubles in a season. Thompson's 20 double-doubles rank fifth among Bradley season marks.

The winner of tonight's matchup between Bradley and Iowa State will move on to the NIVC quarterfinals (Dec. 5-7) to face the winner of tonight's second-round match between North Texas and former MVC rival Wichita State.

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