PORTSMOUTH – Women's basketball sent its five seniors out on a winning note in the final home game of the 2012-13 season. Playing on Senior Day, the No. 14 Bears (22-7, 13-6 MSC) downed Pikeville (11-18, 6-13 MSC), 74-57. The win made the Bears' senior class (Schera Sampson, Allison Nagle, Alex Pohl, Tristan Rumfield and Kayla Wiley) 47-6 in home games during the past four years.

Being the last home game, it was only fitting that a pair of seniors would lead a trio of Bears that reached double figure scoring totals. In her final home game, Sampson had one of the biggest statistical outputs of her SSU career with 26 points and 16 rebounds for her 12th double-double of the season. Pohl also finished with 15 points in the win while Alannah Sheets finished with her first career double-double as she scored 17 points and pulled down a career-high 12 rebounds. Callisha Johnson led Pikeville with 15 points.

Starting all five members of the senior class, SSU started quickly but was eventually tied up at eight-all. The Bears would also find themselves tied at 10-all with 15:08 to play in the opening half but went on an 11-0 run over the next 5:20 to go up 21-10. Pikeville would get the game back to within five with six straight points of its own. However, Sheets would answer with four straight points to thwart any serious run.

SSU would get back up by 10 with 1:48 to play in the opening half and go up by as many as 12 in the final two minutes of the second half before settling for a nine point lead at the break, 37-28. The difference in the opening half was second chance points as the Bears held a 12-2 advantage in that area and controlled the paint to a 24-14 edge.

Six straight combined points from Sampson and Pohl to start the second half put the Bears up by 15 and SSU would never lead by any less than 10 at any point during the second half. The Bears had built their lead up to 16 points with 16:13 left in the game. Pikeville cut that lead down to 10 and was a point away from making it a single-digit difference but the Bears went on a 9-1 run and led by 18 points with exactly seven minutes to play.

That lead would grow to a game-high 21 points at the 4:55 mark and SSU would lead by 20 with 2:34 to play before Pikeville scored the final three points and made it a 17-point difference at the final horn, 74-57.

The Bears held a 49-34 edge in the rebounding department for the game. They also recorded 11 assists against 10 turnovers while forcing Pikeville into 12 turnovers, four of which came off of steals, and allowing just nine assists.

SSU also got to the line 28 times and made 22 of those attempts. This included a 10-of-11 night at the charity stripe from Sheets while Pohl was also 5-of-6.

Women's basketball now sits in a third-place tie with Campbellsville and if the regular season ended today the Bears would earn the third seed in the conference tournament based off of head-to-head matchups. Before looking at that possible scenario, the Bears have one more regular season game to concentrate on this Monday at Rio Grande. That game will get underway at 6 p.m.