PIKEVILLE, Ky. – UPIKE women's basketball carried its momentum from Thursday through the weekend, dominating Cumberland 84-52 on Saturday.
After a sloppy first few minutes, Pikeville dominated the duration of the game.
UPIKE took a 41-18 lead into halftime, which was the fewest points surrendered by the Bears in the first half of a game since they held Martin Methodist to 16 in 2017.
The Bears took the huge early advantage thanks to its great defense, which forced a young Phoenix squad into a ton of turnovers.
Cumberland was held to 21 percent shooting from the floor and also gave up 13 turnovers. Through the whole game, the Bears forced 22 turnovers which turned into 19 points from the Bears.
Saturday was the second straight game that Pikeville utilized the hockey style platoon system of substitutions where five new players come on at a time.
As a result the consistently fresh legs gave UPIKE a 59-20 advantage in bench points, and a 34-22 advantage on points in the paint.
In the first half alone, the Bears had 10 different players score. Overall, 12 of the 13 players to enter the game scored and all 13 recorded one of the three major offensive stat categories.
Mia Greatrex led all scorers with 16 points and tied Brianna Burbridge for the team-high with seven rebounds. AJ Reed (13), Sierra Feltner (12), and Kayla Mullins (11) were the other double-figure scorers.
The third quarter was the lone hiccup in the game for UPIKE where the shooting went cold, but the defense picked up the slack and only surrendered three points off its already large lead.
The Bears took every point of that back and then some in the fourth where they scored 32 points alone.
Pikeville also took advantage of frequent trips to the free-throw stripe, making 20 of a staggering 27 attempts. It's the eighth time in 12 games that UPIKE has shot above 70 percent from the charity stripe this season.
UP NEXT
The Bears will have the week off before another loaded weekend at the Shawnee State Classic. UPIKE will face University of the Virgin Islands on Friday and Faulkner on Saturday.
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