PEORIA, Ill. -- Bradley Softball hits the road for the third weekend in a row, wrapping up a stretch in which the Braves will play nine of 10 games away from home with a three-game Missouri Valley Conference weekend series at Missouri State. The series gets underway Saturday with a noon doubleheader at Killian Stadium in Springfield, Mo., and concludes Sunday with a single game at 11 a.m.
Missouri State (23-15 overall, 8-4 MVC) enters the weekend second in the Valley standings at 8-4 after sweeping Evansville last weekend. Bradley (15-20 overall, 4-6 MVC) took two of three games at Indiana State last week and is currently tied with Southern Illinois for sixth in the standings at 4-6, one game out of a tie for third place.
Bradley has won two of three games against Missouri State in each of the last three trips to Springfield, Mo., and is 7-6 in road games in the series under 10th-year head coach Amy Hayes. The teams have split 14 meetings over the last four years.
BradleyBraves.com will provide a link to live stats for all three games of the series. An audio stream of Saturday's series opener is available online at https://kbflam.com/ and the Braves will make their debut on ESPN+ in Sunday's series finale.
Bradley drew a season-high nine walks Wednesday against SIU Edwardsville in the final non-conference game of the season. The nine base on balls equaled the teams total from the last five games combined. Six Braves walked in the game, with sophomore Allison Apke drawing two base on balls to push her team-best season total to 20.
Apke's 20 walks are the most by a Bradley player since senior Maria Schroeder had 23 free passes as a sophomore in 2016. Tied for the league-lead with 10 home runs, Apke has joined Alycia Bachkora (2009) as the only players in program history with eight doubles, 10 homers and 20 or more walks in a season. Apke currently owns a career-best seven-game hit streak, which dates back to the series opener at Drake, and is hitting .409 during her streak.
Schroeder is closing in on the top 20 in Missouri Valley Conference history in both runs and RBI, needing three runs and six RBI to move into both lists. There are currently only two players who rank among the top 20 in league history in both categories, with Schroeder looking to join Wichita State's Britnee Barnett (2005-08) and Evansville's Jessica Huff (1998-01) on the list. Schroeder hit .600 (6-for-10 ) in last year's series against Missouri State and owns a .355 career batting average in 10 career outings against the Bears.
Freshman Stacia Seeton has emerged as Bradley's cleanup hitter, appearing in the lineup in #4 spot in each of the last 10 games. While Seeton's .355 average in the cleanup spot is on par with her overall season average of .358, her move to the #4 spot bumped Schroeder to the #2 spot and sophomore Apke up to #3 in the batting order. Schroeder is hitting .395 with 12 runs and six RBI since the move up to second in the lineup and has accounted for over one-third of Bradley's 53 runs during that stretch.
Apke has been even hotter, owning a .419 average over the last 10 games, hitting in front of Seeton. The trio is hitting a combined .446 (25-for-56) with runners on base over the 10-game stretch and .514 (18-for-35) with runners in scoring position during that time.
Bradley will follow up the road series at Missouri State with a five-game home stand, opening the stretch Wednesday, April 18 with a 3:30 p.m. doubleheader against I-74 rival Illinois State at Petersen Hotels Field at the Louisville Slugger Sports Complex.
