DES MOINES, Iowa – A return home and strong games from Anna Becker and Maggie Taylor weren't enough to get the Drake women's basketball team back into the win column.
 
Bradley hit the Bulldogs with 12-0 second half run to erase a 5-point Drake lead and went on to a 71-64 victory at Knapp Center on Friday night. The Braves handed Drake its third straight loss and ended a nine-game losing streak to the Bulldogs, winning in Des Moines for the first time since Jan. 2, 2021.
 
Becker and Taylor did their best to keep that from happening. Becker, a freshman, matched her career high with 22 points, making 11-of-18 shots and pulling down eight rebounds. It was the third time she has scored 22 in a game, also reaching that figure against Eastern Illinois in the season opener and Iowa State on Nov. 20.
 
Taylor, a sophomore, achieved her fourth double-double of the season with 15 points and 10 rebounds. She went 5-for-8 from the field, made all but one of her six free throws and added three assists and a block.
 
Both were active around the basket throughout the game. Becker was effective cutting to the basket and scoring on passes from teammates or driving the ball herself. Taylor showed some slick post moves in her seventh game scoring in double figures. She reached double figures in rebounds for the fourth time this season.
 
Grace Knutson added 13 points, two steals, and an assist off the bench for the Bulldogs (4-12, 3-3) who were coming off a trip to Belmont and Murray State. Bradley kept the defensive pressure on leading scorer Abbie Aalsma throughout, and the Bulldog senior finished with just five points, matching her season low, and missed 10 of her 12 shots.
 
Drake shot 42 percent overall and went just 2-for-17 from 3-point range. The Bulldogs didn't make their second trey until Knutson knocked one down from the left corner with 1.1 seconds left.
 
Becker scored 10 points in the second quarter to help rally Drake from an 18-11 deficit into a two-point lead at halftime. She rattled off eight straight Drake points – all on layups – to pull the Bulldogs into a tie at 22. The game was tied four more times after that before Becker worked her way to feather another one in for a 32-30 Drake lead with 1:49 left in the half. That's how it stood at the break as the two teams combined to miss their last eight shots of the half.
 
Quinn Vice's turnaround and Taylor's reverse layup lifted the Bulldogs into a 36-32 lead less than four minutes into the second half, and they eventually went ahead 46-41 on consecutive buckets from Becker, the first on nice feed from Taylor, the second on a pass from Ava Hawthorne, who led the Bulldogs with five of their 19 assists.
 
That lead quickly vanished, however. Bradley ended the quarter with a jumper and back-to-back triples, the latter two after steals at Drake's end of the court, for a 49-46 lead. The Braves then got two quick baskets to start the fourth quarter to hike their advantage to 53-46 and put the Bulldogs in a scramble mode the rest of the way.
 
Drake twice got to within five, the second time at 55-50 when Becker took the ball inside and hit a turnaround shot. Bradley answered with an 11-3 run for a 66-53 lead and the Bulldogs were never closer than the final margin after that.
 
"Would've been nice if we shot the three a little better, but we had lots of good looks," Suzie Glazer Burt Head Coach Alllison Pohlman said. "Disappointed with our late shot clock management, and we played well on both ends in the first half, got some big stops. But credit to Bradley for exposing us in the second half…we're working at it, need to keep fighting and battling."
 
Four players scored in double figures for Bradley (11-6, 4-2), led by freshman Mya Foz with 17 points. Drake forced nine Bradley turnovers in the first half, but the Braves gave up only four times after that and ended up outscoring Drake 12-9 in points off turnovers.
 
With Becker and Taylor doing their damage inside, Drake had a 44-32 edge in points in the paint and outrebounded the Braves 40-32. But the two 3-pointers were a season low for the Bulldogs, who had averaged eight baskets from deep in their previous four games.
 
Drake will try to get back on track when it visits Valparaiso on Sunday for a 1 p.m. game. The Bulldogs then come back home to play Evansville on Friday, Jan.  23, and Murray Sate on Sunday, Jan. 25.
 
Notes

• Drake, which suffered its third straight loss, slipped to 4-12 overall this season, including a 3-3 mark in the Missouri Valley Conference.
• The Bulldogs are now 1-6 at home this season.
• Drake shot 41.9 percent from the floor (26-62) including 52.9 percent (9-17) in the second quarter.
• Drake outrebounded Bradley, 40-32.
• Drake made a season-low two 3-point baskets, while shooting a season low 11.8 percent (2-17) from three-point range.
• There were seven lead changes and nine ties in the game
• Freshman Anna Becker enjoyed her third career 20-plus scoring game by matching her career high with 22 points 
• Becker scored 12 points in the second quarter, equaling the entire team total of 12 points by Bradley.
• Sophomore Maggie Taylor recorded her fourth double-double of the season with 15 points and a game-high 10 rebounds.
• Sophomore Grace Knutson added 13 points.
• Senior Abbie Aalsma, appearing in her 50th career game for Drake, tied a season low with five points. She had scored 29 points in her last home game against Southern Illinois Jan. 2.
• Becker collected eight rebounds, bettering her combined total of seven rebounds in her previous two games.
• Drake had a nine-game winning streak against Bradley snapped but the Bulldogs still lead the all-time series, 71-19, including a 37-7 record in games played in Des Moines.
• This marked Bradley's first victory in Des Moines since earning an 80-75 win on Jan. 2, 2021.