The Drake University volleyball team handed visiting Bradley its first Missouri Valley Conference loss of the season with a 3-1 Drake win, Friday night at the Knapp Center.
The Bulldogs bounced back after a close first set loss, 26-24, to take the final three sets with set scores of 25-20, 25-11, and 25-15.
Grace Schofield (Mundelein, Ill.) lead the Bulldogs (14-5, 3-2 MVC) again with a double-double, registering a career-high 19 kills and with a season-high 19 digs in the match.
Cathryn Cheek (Coppell, Texas) also garnered a double-double of her own with 17 kills and 10 digs.
"Grace has really come on and has a heavy arm," said Drake head coach Darrin McBroom. "We've been encouraging her to use that and she has been very disciplined. Both of our outsides, Grace and Cathryn hit really good numbers tonight."
Paige Aspinwall (Dayton, Minn.) gathered a season-high 43 assists as the Bulldogs switched to a 5-1 rotation for the match.
"We decided that was the best situation for our team tonight and we wanted to give it a shot," McBroom said of the rotation change. "We thought there were a lot of positives and we had the option to sub more frequently. Even though we didn't need it we enjoy that flexibility."
Bradley (14-3, 4-1 MVC) was led by Erica Haslag's 15 kills on 35 attempts.
The Bulldogs lead the Braves, 15-11, at the media timeout in set one, but Bradley responded with a 6-0 run to lead, 17-15. Drake followed with a 4-0 run of their own forcing a Brave timeout. It was down to the wire, but an attacking error from the Bulldogs gave Bradley the 26-24 victory. Schofield came out hot registering 8 of her kills in the opening set.
"We knew Bradley is off to a historic start and playing with a lot of confidence," McBroom said. "That first set, we thought we had them down and they kept coming back. I'm most proud of how we got better as the night went along. We stayed calm and composed."
Both teams were knotted early in the second set before Drake went on a 13-7 run and forced a timeout leading, 18-12. Unphased by the timeout, Drake came out with a convincing block from Natalie Fry (Allen, Texas) and
Emily Plock (Altoona, Iowa) and scored another point forcing the Braves to take another timeout with the Bulldogs leading, 20-12. The Braves did not go away as they rallied for an 8-3 run forcing a Bulldog timeout with the score tied 23-20. Schofield continued to carry the Bulldogs by registering her 11th kill of the match following the timeout. The Bulldog defense came through strong again, this time with Plock and
Elle Tubbs (Clinton, Iowa), to stop the Braves' attack attempt and end the set, 25-20. Drake finished the match with10 team blocks, 7.5 of them coming from Tubbs, Plock and Fry.
Following that set, Drake's offense got into high gear, hitting .250 and .275 in the third and fourth sets with a 75 percent sideout percentage. The Bulldogs went on an 11-3 run in the third set, forcing a Brave timeout with the score at 19-11 and didn't allow another Brave point as they closed the set 25-11.
Bradley's eight attacking errors combined with 13 Bulldog kills gave Drake the match victory in the fourth set bu a convincing 25-15 margin. Schofield and Cheek combined for 10 of those kills to put the set away easily.
Drake continues its three-game homestand with a match against Illinois State Saturday, Oct. 6 at 7 p.m. in the Knapp Center. The Redbirds are 4-1 in the MVC after suffering their first loss of the conference season Friday night at UNI.
"This is a tough homestand," McBroom added. "Tomorrow will be a challenging match as well. There's not easy match this weekend and we need to be hitting on all cylinders."
