GREENSBURG, Pa:  The Pitt-Greensburg women's basketball team opened their 2015-16 Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference schedule with a solid 74-57 defeat of the visiting D'Youville College Spartans.  The Bobcats would lead from start to finish on Saturday, marking the second straight game in which UPG would never trail.

The victory puts Pitt-Greensburg at 3-4 on the year and more importantly 1-0 to start conference play.  The Spartans fall to 0-2 in the AMCC and 3-5 for the season.

The Bobcats were dominant in the first quarter of play, keeping D'Youville from making a field goal until the final seconds.  Though they'd give up a pair of layups inside of five ticks remaining, UPG would still take a nine-point 15-6 lead into the first break.

The second quarter would be more of the same as Pitt-Greensburg would add more and more separation from the Spartans.  Five straight points from Kelsey Oddis (Lower Burrell, PA, Burrell) ending with a free throw at the 1:07 mark gave UPG their largest lead of the half of 21 points.  D'Youville would follow with two layups to end their five and a half minute second quarter scoring draught, but an Emily Nelson (New Stanton, PA, Hempfield) layup with two ticks remaining would push the Pitt-Greensburg lead back to 19 points at 34-15.  Over two quarters, the Bobcats held the visitors to just six field goals and only 22 shots.

At the midway point of the third quarter, UPG would gain their largest leads of the game at 25 points, both coming on Sylvia Stuart (Harrisburg, PA, Central Dauphin East) layups, the latter at the 4:31 mark building a 44-19 advantage.

D'Youville began to dig into the deficit over the next 10 minutes of play, bringing themselves within four at 56-52 with four minutes left in the game. But, the Bobcats would squash any hopes of a Spartan rally responding with a 18-5 run and holding the visitors to just one made field goal to close out the game.

Pitt-Greensburg finished the night shooting 40% from the floor and 31% from three.  They'd hold D'Youville to just 11% from behind the arc while forcing 34 turnovers and earning 13 steals.

The Bobcat offense was paced by two double-digit performers in Nelson with 18 and Chianti Sivek (Finleyville, PA, Ringgold) with 16.

Up next is an AMCC trip to Penn State Altoona for a Wednesday, December 9^th showdown with the Lions.  Tip-off is scheduled for 9:00pm.