EAST PEORIA, Ill. ? The Indiana State Sycamores suffered from a tough shooting effort and uncharacteristic turnovers as they fell to the Bradley Braves by a score of 81-62 in front of 602 fans inside the Lorene Ramsey Gym on the campus of Illinois Central College.
The Sycamores fell to 11-9, 7-2 MVC and dropped into a second place tie with Creighton in the league standings while the Braves ended a four game losing skid and improved to 14-6, 5-4 MVC.
“We played hard and competed, but I don't think we played that well,” head coach Jim Wiedie said. “Our inability to stop them in transition and the fact that we turned the ball over more than we usually do proved to be our downfall.”
Junior Kelsey Luna was limited to just five points in the game, but she got three of those right out of the gate with a wide-open 3-pointer from the right wing to give ISU a quick 3-0 advantage on the scoreboard.
A lay-up by Bradley's Sonya Harris cut the Sycamore lead down to 3-2 and then the first of three first half 3-pointers from freshman Michelle Lund gave Bradley a 5-3 lead. Kara Schilli drained a jump shot to knot the score at five and Lund came right back with another triple with 16:43 left in the first half which staked the Braves to a lead they would not lose.
The Sycamores battled and competed to cut the Bradley lead down to 30-24 with 4:09 left, but the Braves finished the half on a 12-2 spurt to race into the locker room with a 42-26 lead.
A Shannon Thomas free throw opened the scoring in the second half and then after Monica Rogers scored on a lay-up, the Sycamores got back-to-back jumpers to fall by Bianca Jarrett and Kelsie Cooley to make it 44-31 with 16:32 left.
Bradley got the lead back out to 18 points at 55-37 with 11:13 left and then freshman Megan Burton scored the game's next five points en route to posting a career-high seven points.
A pair of free throws by Jarrett made it 55-44 with 9:29 left but that would be as close as the Sycamores would get in falling 81-62.
Jarrett paced the team with 15 points with a perfect 6-of-6 mark at the free throw line. Cooley joined Jarrett in double figures scoring with 11 points on the strength of a solid 5-of-11 shooting effort.
Bradley placed four in double figures with Skye Johnson pacing the Braves with 16 points. Hanna Muegge and Raisa Taylor scored 13 each while Renee Frericks added 10.
Bradley converted 17 Indiana State turnovers into 29 points and scored 22 points off the fast break.
The Sycamores return to action on Saturday, February 8 when they travel to league leading Illinois State to battle the Redbirds in an ESPNU televised contest that tips off at 3:05 p.m. (EDT).
