Softball Closes Road Slate With Weekend Series At Missouri St.

Josh Schwam

Softball 4/29/2022 10:00:00 AM

PEORIA, Ill. -- A three-game weekend series at Missouri State will close out the 2022 regular-season road schedule for Bradley Softball, with the Braves and Bears playing a noon doubleheader Saturday at Killian Stadium in Springfield, Mo., before concluding the series with a single game at noon on Sunday.

Bradley (23-21 overall, 11-10 MVC) enters the weekend tied with Southern Illinois for fourth in the Missouri Valley Conference standings after opening a four-game road swing with a 5-2 win at I-74 rival Illinois State Wednesday. Missouri State (22-15 overall, 15-4 MVC), which will host the 2022 MVC Tournament in two weeks, sits in second in the league standings and is coming off a seven-game road swing with the weekend series wrapping up the regular-season home slate for the Bears.

All three games of the series will be available on ESPN3 and BradleyBraves.com will provide links to live stats for all three contests.

The Bears own a 62-39 advantage in the all-time series, but the Braves swept the regular-season series last year in Peoria for BU's first series sweep since 2009. The teams have split the last 22 meetings, which includes the teams splitting eight games played in Springfield, Mo., over that stretch. Bradley is 19-21 in the series under head coach Amy Hayes, which includes a 7-8 mark on the road.

Wednesday's 5-2 victory at Illinois State locked up a series win for the Braves against the Redbirds, marking the third time in the last four years the teams have met that Bradley won the regular-season series from its I-74 rival. The series win against Illinois State coupled with a three-game sweep of Southern Illinois marks the first time in program history Bradley won both regular-season series against the two in-state conference foes in the same season. The last time the Braves had a combined winning record against Illinois State and Southern Illinois in regular-season conference play was 1995 (3-1).

Senior Lucy Mead has certainly had her fair share of success against Missouri State, going 6-for-10 with seven runs, one homer and three RBI in the four outings against the Bears last spring. In seven career games against Missouri State, Mead is 9-for-19 (.474) with nine runs, one triple, one homer and three RBI. She has also swiped four bases against the Bears and owns a .524 on base percentage and .737 slugging percentage in her career vs. Missouri State. Boonville, Mo., native Camryn Monteer hit .308 last year against Missouri State, while Ashland, Mo., native Camryn Schaller has posted a 1.31 ERA in 10.2 innings of work (two appearances) against the Bears with 13 strikeouts and just one walk.

Bradley broke out of a season-long stretch of five games without a homer in a big way with the Braves belting three solo homers in Wednesday's 5-2 win at Illinois State. The three-homer game was the third this season for BU with three or more dingers. Freshman Abbott Badgley smacked her team-leading sixth homer of the year and is now one of six players in Bradley history to hit six or more homers as a freshman as she joined a list that includes teammate Mead (2019) and Bradley Assistant Coach Kealia Wysocki (2017). Sophomore Jordy van der Werf also homered Wednesday and now has three homers among her last seven hits. Mead capped the scoring with a solo shot in the seventh for her first home run since the opening weekend of the season and her team-leading 11th career dinger.

Mead owns a career-best 14-game hit streak after going 2-for-4 with a solo homer Wednesday at Illinois State. Her streak is tied for the fourth longest in school history and is the longest since 2018 when Allison Apke posted a 15-game hit streak. Mead is hitting .438 (21-for-48) during her current hit streak, which is two games short of the longest hit streak in program history. The six longest hitting streaks in program history have all come since 2015.

Fellow senior Grace French has reached base safely in a career-best 18 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.

French has picked up four wins in her last appearances and is now 9-8 on the season after a complete game effort in Wednesday's 5-2 victory at Illinois State. French has a career-best nine wins on the year for the most victories by a Bradley hurler since Megan Mahaffy went 9-4 in 2019. The win at Illinois State was the 28th career victory for French, which pushed her among the top 10 in school history. Her 112.0 innings of work this spring are the most by a Brave since 2018. French needs one more victory to become BU's first pitcher with 10 or more wins in a season since 2015. She is 7-3 with a 2.73 ERA in Valley play with her seven league wins the most by a Bradley pitcher dating back to when Alyson Spinas-Valainis went 8-9 in Valley games in 2015. Over her last six appearances, French is 4-0 with a 2.43 ERA (31.2 innings) and has held hitters to a .221 average.

Bradley follows up the series at Missouri State with a three-game home series against league-leading Northern Iowa May 7 & 8 at Petersen Hotels Field at the Louisville Slugger Sports Complex to finish the 2022 regular-season schedule.

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