Women’s Basketball Faces Wright State In Road Opener

Duane Zehr

Women's Basketball 12/1/2020 11:30:00 AM

PEORIA, Ill. -- Bradley Women's Basketball will face consecutive Horizon League opponents when the Braves travel to Dayton, Ohio, for a Wednesday afternoon matchup with Wright State in the team's 2020-21 road opener.

Looking to rebound from its first loss of the young season, Bradley (1-1 overall) will tip things off at 1 p.m. (CST) Wednesday against the Raiders, who will be playing their season opener. Picked third in the Horizon League preseason poll, Wright State is coming off a 19-12 campaign in 2019-20 and finished second in its conference with a 13-5 league mark.

Wednesday's game can be viewed on ESPN3, while BradleyBraves.com will provide links to the live stats and WIRL 1290 AM radio broadcast.

The Braves and Raiders have split two previous meetings, with both games played in Dayton, Ohio. Bradley claimed the first meeting between the two teams, a 64-50 decision on Dec. 16, 1989, with head coach Andrea Gorski collecting 10 points and four steals during her sophomore season. Wright State won the most recent game in the series, topping the Braves 87-71 on Dec. 21, 2013 at the Nutter Center in the championship game of the Wright State Invitational.

Bradley is 20-25 all-time in the first true road game of the season after last year's 74-58 win at Oakland to start the 2019-20 campaign. The Braves are 6-3 in their road opener over the last nine seasons, however. The Eastern Time Zone has been kind to Bradley as of late with the Braves boasting an 8-2 record over the last two years in games played in the Eastern Time Zone with both setbacks coming at Big Ten foes (Purdue & Michigan). Bradley won just eight games played in the Eastern Time Zone between the 2008-09 and 2017-18 campaigns.

Bradley is 7-6 all-time in games played in the state of Ohio and owns a 2-1 record in games played at Wright State (includes a neutral site victory over Lipscomb in 2013-14). Six of BU's 13 games played in the Buckeye State have been since 2008-09 with the Braves 3-3 in those contests. In the last trip to Ohio, junior Tatum Koenig scored 11 of her team-best 16 points to help lead a fourth quarter rally and fellow junior Lasha Petree hit the game-winning shot with 8.9 seconds left to lift Bradley to a 67-65 win at Cleveland State (12-19-18).

Petree followed up her 22-point performance in the season opener with a 23-point effort Saturday against Milwaukee and currently leads the Missouri Valley Conference in scoring at 22.5 points per contest. She turned in back-to-back outings of 20 or more points for the fifth time in her career and will be looking for three consecutive 20-point games for just the second time. Last year, Petree scored 24 or more in each of the first three MVC games this past January. She passed Bradley's Video Coordinator/Assistant Director of Operations Leti Lerma on BU's all-time scoring list Saturday and is currently tied with Jenn Jolley for 25th in school history at 920 points. Petree is closing in on current Bradley Head Coach Andrea Gorski on the school scoring list, needing 61 points to overtake her. She is also looking to become the 22nd player in program history to score 1,000 career points.

Bradley has averaged 27.5 free throw attempts through two games, thanks in part to the efforts of Petree. The MVC Preseason Player of the Year has already made 16 trips to the charity stripe after average 4.0 free throw attempts per game last year. Petree was 10-for-11 from the line Saturday against Milwaukee, matching her career high for made free throws. She has also been on the mark, making 15-of-16 attempts (93.8 percent) after she was 11-for-20 from the line over the final five games of 2019-20.

Senior Gabi Haack has also gotten to the line 10 times on the young season and now ranks 10th in Bradley history in career made free throws after going 6-for-7 against Milwaukee. Haack is 86 made free throws from breaking the Bradley career mark of 348 made free throws.

The remainder of Bradley's non-conference schedule along with the full Missouri Valley Conference schedule will be announced at a later date.

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