Reed's sharp shooting leads UPIKE to win against Virgin Islands

PORTSMOUTH, Ky -- The Bears offense was firing on all cylinders nearly across the board on Friday night, but thanks In particular to two strong offensive performances, UPIKE was able to easily walk away with a 76-56 win against Virgin Islands to begin the Penn Station Classic.

Freshman guard Alexis Reed had her offensive coming out party, scoring a career-high 19 points off the bench to lead all scorers on 7-11 shooting, including going 4-6 from beyond the arc. Mary Englert also continued her strong shooting run with 12 points of her own, plus four rebounds and four assists.

While the offense was on from tip-off, it took a quarter for the Bears (9-2) to settle in defensively and actually trailed after the first, 23-21. The Bucs (4-13) shot 56.3 percent from the floor in that time.

But from there, the Bears were dialed in on both ends of the floor, outscoring the Buccaneers 41-21 across the next two quarters, forcing 15 turnovers in the process. Including the tail end of the first quarter, UPIKE began the second on a 13-0 run to retake the lead.

UVI would answer and shortly take the lead back before Reed and Englert each hit shorts in the final minutes to give the Bears a 41-37 lead at halftime.

The third quarter was UPIKE's best defensively. Pikeville held UVI to 3-11 shooting, while forcing five turnovers to outscore the Bucs by 14 in the quarter. The third quarter was also the most equally distributed in terms of scoring as eight different Bears scoring to build its 18-point lead.

With such a wide lead, UPIKE was able to coast through the fourth quarter, but still held UVI to under 35 percent shooting.

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The Bears will have arguably its toughest non-conference contest of the season on Saturday, facing No. 15 Talladega, who sits at 12-1 after it beat No. 7 Shawnee State on Friday.

-UPIKE-