Sharon Blade scored a career-high 25 points and
Nadia Peruch had a double-double with a season-high 11 rebounds and 10 points to lead the Illinois State womens basketball team past Missouri Valley Conference rival Bradley, 79-60, in league action Saturday at Redbird Arena.
The win gives the Redbirds their first Valley win of the season, a second-straight victory, in both teams conference opener and improved to 3-7 overall. The Braves fall to 0-1 in the MVC, 5-4 overall.
Bradley broke out to a 21-9 lead on the strength of physical defense and seven points by Sara Bailey, who led Bradley with 20 points. The Braves hit 10 of their first 19 shots while ISU made just 4 of 12 and had 12 turnovers.
A three-point play by Blade started ISU cutting into that lead. With the Braves leading 26-19 with 3:43 left in the first, ISU went on a 16-0 run over just 2 minutes and 20 seconds to take a 35-26 lead with 1:10 left in the half. A Bradley free throw made it 35-27 at halftime. Freshman guard
Taren O'Brien had nine points--a pair of three-point goals and a traditional three-point play--and Blade had six--all free throws--to finish the half with 14 points.
Blade scored the first two baskets of the second half and Reichles short jumper just 70 seconds in gave ISU a 41-27 lead. That grew to as much as 50-31 on
Jaci McCormack's two free throws with 13:55 remaining.
But Bradley rallied with a 9-1 spurt when Jenn Jolley converted a steal and layup with 11:07 left, which cut the lead down to 51-40. At that point, Peruch and Blade scored ISUs next 10 points to raise the lead back to 61-44 with 8:32 remaining.
ISU held on to its comfortable advantage and with the game in hand, Yopp went to her reserves and the bench brigade. Redbird freshman
Stacey White was a key contributor off the bench with 6 points and 6 rebounds in 13 minutes.
After shooting only 39 percent in the first, Illinois State came back after the half to shoot 66 percent. Bradley was 12-30 in the second half, ending the game shooting 34 percent, making just 13 of their last 45 attempts.
Bailey led the Braves with 20 points while Jolley added 13. Reichle had 12 points for the Birds while nine different players scored for ISU.
Illinois State head coach
Jenny Yopp said after the game the intensity and depth of her team was a deciding factor in the Redbirds win.
I didnt feel we really came to this game well prepared, but after we got into the game and calmed down, we picked up our intensity, utilized our depth and stayed on track to finish, Yopp said. Bradley is a very versatile team but so are we and todays game showed we can be a threat.
BU coach Paula Buscher throught Blade was a big difference, using her height advantage.
Blade was active and called for the ball and was aggressive in taking it to the basket, said Buscher. Were always going to have to deal with the depth problem.
I honestly didnt think Sharon played that great, but looking at her numbers it looks otherwise, Yopp continued. But when she played hard and dominates in scoring, Sharon gets energetic. And when she gets going, our whole team feeds off of that and we can make good plays. Nadia does so many things for this team also and getting a double-double today shows her confidence.
The Redbirds return to action in their second Valley match of the season when Northern Iowa, a 64-49 winner Saturday at Indiana State, comes to Redbird Arena on Monday, New Years Day. The game starts at 2:05 p.m.
