Jaci McCormack and Katie Donovan scored 12 points apiece, but McCormacks shot to tie at buzzer fell short and so did Illinois State, 57-55 in a Missouri Valley Conference womens basketball game played Friday at Robertson Field House.
Illinois State, 5-10, 2-4 in the Valley, got 15 rebounds from Holly Hallstrom for the second straight game and shot 56.5 percent in the first half, but Bradley withstood some good Redbird first-have defense to come back to win. Erika Nelson led the Braves with 14 points as BU won despite an 0-7 shooting night by leading scorer Dena Williams, who only played 16 minutes because of foul trouble.
Bradley, 11-4, 4-2 in the Valley, beat the Birds for the fifth straight time in Peoria.
Redbird coach Robin Pingeton thought McCormack was the right player to take the last shot.
If Im in that situation a million times, thats who Id want to have the ball, said Pingeton. We had a lot of opportunities to win the game before that. At times we had very good defense, but in the last six minutes of the first half we had some mental breakdowns.
Pingeton was unhappy about 21 turnovers, 15 in the first half.
You have to value the ball every possession, said Pingeton. the final score is evidence of that.
Williams left just three minutes into the game with her second foul and Bradley leading 5-0. At that point, Amber Shelton hit a jumper in the lane and McCormack hit a three on a kick-out pass from Donovan to start a 14-2 Redbird run that gave ISU a 14-7 advantege. Williams returned at 11:25, but only for three minutes, but Bradley did just fine without her.
Illinois State built the lead to 24-13 on a Donovan bucket-and-free throw three-pointer with 7:06 left in the half. But Bradley rallied behind Erika Nelsons 10 points to go on a 15-4 run to earn a 28-28 tie.
Megan McCracken gave ISU a 31-28 halftime lead on a three-pointer with 31 seconds left. The halftime stats were strange: ISU out-rebounded Bradley 21-12 and out-shot the Braves .565 to .324, but the Birds had 15 turnovers to Bradleys five and that kept BU close.
ISU had a 40-37 rebounding leadat the end, but shot just 31 percent in the second half and only made 4 of 8 free throws.
Bradley's last field goal of the game was a Jen Brown layup with 4:36 left to put the Braves up 55-49. But Donovan's layup at 3:41 and McCormack's three-pointer at 1:51 got the 'Birds within 55-54. McCracken's three with 1:20 left coughed out of the basket and Ashley Chelleen's free throw at 1:17 gave BU a two-point lead.
McCormack split a pair of free throws with 54 seconds left to bring ISU within one. ISU had another chance to take the lead but a turnover with 9.1 seconds left sent Brown to the line, where she made the first of two, setting up McCormack's final try.
The Redbirds move on to play a 4:05 p.m. contest Sunday at Northern Iowa.
