Bradley University Athletics

Volleyball To Face NIU In Saturday Exhibition

Bob Hunt - Photographer

Volleyball 8/17/2018 12:30:00 PM

PEORIA, Ill. -- Bradley Volleyball will face its first outside competition of the 2018 season Saturday when the Braves travel to DeKalb, Ill., for a 1 p.m. exhibition matchup against in-state foe Northern Illinois.

Third-year Bradley head coach Carol Price-Torok and her squad made their 2018 debut with Wednesday night's Red-White Scrimmage at Renaissance Coliseum and will face the Huskies in their lone exhibition on the 2018 slate Saturday afternoon.

📽️ highlights from tonight's scrimmage ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/f9Mfe4A9oJ
— Bradley Volleyball (@BRADLEYvolley) August 16, 2018

The Braves faced Northern Illinois seven times during a 10-year span between 2003 and 2012, but the teams have played just once since that stretch - a neutral site contest in Fargo, N.D., during the 2016 season.

Bradley opened practice Wednesday, Aug. 8 and will kick off the 2018 season Aug. 24 & 25 in Morehead, Ky., at the Eagle Challenge where the Braves will face Hampton, St. Francis (N.Y.) and tournament-host Morehead State.

Picked to finish seventh in the preseason Missouri Valley Conference coaches' poll after a 10th-place finish in 2017, Bradley returns three of its top four in kills from last fall in addition to returning four individuals who had 300 or more digs for a defense which ranked 11th in the nation in digs per set.

Senior Erica Haslag was the first Brave to earn First-Team All-MVC honors since 2005 last year during a junior season in which she posted the second-best season kill total (530) in Bradley history. Haslag, who was named a preseason All-MVC pick Wednesday, headlines a returning cast which includes five returning starters and a libero among the nine returnees.

Six new individuals will possibly be making their Bradley debuts during Saturday's scrimmage. Sophomore transfer (Mississippi State) Sara Maddox joins five freshmen to make up the group of newcomers. Maddox had a season-high 25 kills in her first collegiate match last fall and is expected to help balance a lineup which also includes junior Kathryn Graf, who led the team in both hitting percentage and blocks in addition to ranking second in total kills.

In fact, Bradley is the only team in the MVC to return a setter which had 1,000 assists (Hannah Angeli) combined with a player who had 500+ digs (Yavianliz Rosado) and an individual with 100 blocks (Graf) along with a pair of individuals with 250+ kills last year. The Braves return a grouping like that for the first time in program history.

Bradley's 2018 home opener is slated for Friday, Aug. 31 against Western Illinois as part of the CEFCU Invitational.

Bradley Volleyball season tickets are $40 for adults and $20 for children (ages 14 and under). For more information or to purchase tickets contact the Bradley Athletics Ticket Office (BradleyTicketOffice@bradley.edu) at (309) 677-2625.

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