By: Eric Gray and Satchel Perlowski
The Bradley women’s volleyball team just finished the regular season over this past weekend, with a win at home against Indiana State. This pushed their overall record to 15-14 and their conference record to 11-7. This was good enough for fourth place out of 12 teams in the Missouri Valley Conference.
The MVC tournament begins on Thursday, November 28th as Bradley faces off against fifth seeded Valparaiso who finished the regular season with an 8-10 conference record. With a win Thursday, Bradley would advance to play the University of Northern Iowa in the second round.
UNI has been the best team in the Valley this year by a landslide. They finished with an unbelievable conference record of 17-1 and an overall record of 23-9. They also finished out the regular season on an 11-game winning streak. UNI is ranked 40th in the nation and look to breeze past competition on their way to back-to-back championship seasons.
Earlier in the year, multiple players said that they expect to make a postseason run based on the strong chemistry they felt in the locker room. It turns out that chemistry along with solid play on the court have the Braves in a position to do just that.
“We are very young and inexperienced with the MVC playoffs, so our communication needs to be strong. We need to be giving our setters feedback and talking about the offense of the other team on the bench and in-between sets.” said Sophomore Katherine Poore.
Sophomore Hannah Thompson has had a great season for Bradley as she leads the team in kills, and total attempts through the regular season. She’s been fantastic on offense and defense as she also leads the team with 523 digs. The player with the second most has 377. Thompson is also third on the team in blocks and she’s only 5 feet 8.
“I’m just excited to get out there and play our game. It’s got us this far and we are all confident that we can beat every team in our conference,” Thompson said. “The biggest thing is that we can’t have any unforced errors. Obviously they will happen, but we definitely need to minimize those.”
The young Bradley Braves definitely have a shot to make some noise in the MVC tournament. Over the course of the season, they’ve shown heart, passion, and discipline. All three traits are exciting to see from such a young group, although the narrative for this team shouldn’t be their youth, but their skill.
Freshman Serena Sparks was excited to get her first experience in the tournament and be able to compete with her team.
“I am nervous but really excited about being able to play and grind it out with my teammates,” said Sparks. “This is the biggest stage we have had all season and I cannot wait to jump at the opportunity to win the conference”.
In six total sets against UNI this year, Bradley has won three. Other teams in the Valley have been lucky to even win one, let alone three. Bradley has a 5-5 combined record against the five opposing teams in the tournament and four of those losses came from Loyola and UNI.
The Braves have split with Valparaiso both times they’ve played them this season so it will be interesting to see who emerges victorious in the rubber match this Thursday.
Coach Torok is excited to coach in the MVC tournament after having an early departure in the tournament last year. The Braves still have a sour taste in their mouths after losing a 5-set heartbreaker to Drake.
Make sure to tune in to ESPN plus to watch the Bradley Braves compete for a MVC title. The tournament begins on Thanksgiving Day and the Championship game is on Saturday, November 30th.