Softball Visits Illinois State Wednesday

Josh Schwam

Softball 4/26/2022 10:58:00 AM

PEORIA, Ill. -- After closing out the longest home stand in seven years, Bradley Softball opens the final road swing of the regular-season schedule with a midweek game at I-74 rival Illinois State with the Braves kicking off a four-game Missouri Valley Conference road trip Wednesday with a 5 p.m. game to finish out the season series against the Redbirds.

Bradley (22-21 overall, 10-10 MVC) enters Wednesday's outing at Marian Kneer Stadium in Normal, Ill., fifth in the standings, one half-game ahead of Illinois State (19-24 overall, 9-10 MVC) and just one-and-a-half games behind third-place Drake. The Braves and Redbirds split a doubleheader in Peoria last week with BU getting a walk-off 4-3 victory in the opener and Illinois State taking the nightcap 7-3.

Wednesday's game will be available on ESPN+ and BradleyBraves.com will provide a link to live stats.

Bradley is 6-5 in the series since 2018 and the Braves will be trying to win the season series for the third time since 2018. Bradley is 2-2 in road games in the series since 2018.

Bradley's five true road wins are its most since 2019 and BU's 16 wins away from home (road and neutral) are tied for the most in the MVC this season.

For the third time in program history Bradley has a pair of freshmen with 20 or more RBI. Freshman Abbott Badgley, who is hitting a team-best .343 on the year, is second for the Braves with 23 RBI, while Katie Pederson is fourth on the squad with 20 RBI. The only other seasons in which Bradley had two freshmen with 20 or more runs driven in were 2015 and 2018. Badgley's 23 RBI are the most by a BU rookie since 2019 and tied for the eighth-best freshman total in program history. Freshman Addie Welsh has 10 of her 18 RBI in Valley play and the freshmen trio have combined for 31 of BU's 75 RBI in league action. Welsh needs two more RBI to give Bradley three freshmen with 20 or more RBI in the same season for the first time in school history.

Senior Grace French picked up a pair of complete game victories last week to even her record at 8-8 as she matched her season win total from last year. French, who needs one more victory to push her career total among the top 10 in Bradley history, is the first Bradley hurler with 100 or more innings pitched (105.0) in a season since 2018 and is looking to become BU's first pitcher with 10 or more victories in a season since 2015. She is 6-3 with a 2.82 ERA in Valley play with her six league wins tied for the most by a Bradley pitcher (Megan Mahaffy - 6-2 in 2019) since Alyson Spinas-Valainis went 8-9 in Valley games in 2015.

Senior Lucy Mead owns a career-best 13-game hit streak after going 5-for-11 at the plate in the weekend series against Evansville. Mead, who is hitting .432 during her streak, owns the longest hit streak by a Brave since Allison Apke posted a 15-game hit streak in 2018. In fact, the six longest hitting streaks in program history have all come since 2015 with Mead's 13-game hit streak currently the sixth longest in Bradley history.

French has reached base safely in a career-best 16 consecutive games for the longest streak at Bradley since current Bradley Assistant Coach Kealia Wysocki had a stretch of 18 consecutive games reaching base in 2020.

The Braves follow up the mid-week contest at Illinois State with a three-game weekend series at Missouri State.

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