Behind a balanced scoring effort and a strong night shooting, the 17th-ranked Saint Vincent women's basketball team defeated Presidents' Athletic Conference foe Bethany College 85-48 in the Robert S. Carey Center.  

The victory moves Saint Vincent's conference record to 12-1, while the Bearcats are now 20-2 overall, marking the 17th 20-win season in the team's 27-year history.  Bethany falls to 11-11 overall, and 6-7 in the PAC.

Brittany Sedlock led the Bearcats with 24 points, going 10-for-18 from the floor, while Emily Fenton scored 18 and Caty Kumar came off the bench to bucket 12.  Fenton also added team-highs with seven rebounds and five assists, while Melissa Mansur posted five of the Bearcats' 16 steals on the evening.  Saint Vincent forced 26 Bethany turnovers, while the Bearcats committed just nine.

Bethany was led on the scoresheet by the duo of Anne Wilson and Katelynn Hackathorn, who each scored 12 points.  Renee Shepherd grabbed 11 rebounds for the Bison.

After the teams traded buckets in the opening five minutes, the Bearcats embarked on a 9-0 run, capped off with a Sedlock lay up, to go up 14-5 with just over 13 minutes left in the first half.  Bethany would respond, scoring five unanswered points, but the hosts quickly regained a double-figure lead, 24-12, on a pair of Fenton free throws with 8:30 left until the break.   A Kumar three-pointer at the 1:50 mark gave SVC its largest lead of the half, 38-25, before SVC took a 38-28 lead into the intermission.

The Bearcats continued to keep the momentum to open up the second half, outscoring the Bison 18-10 in the first five minutes, as a Fenton three-pointer gave SVC a 56-38 advantage with 15:10 remaining.  The lead would continue to grow, as a Kumar lay up made the score 67-43 with 8:40 left, before the Bearcats ended the game on a 17-5 run over the final 7:30, with the 37-point final advantage the team's largest of the night.

As a team, the Bearcats shot a strong 45.1 percent from the floor, going 32-for-71, while also connecting on 6 of 16 from behind the three-point line.  Conversely, Bethany shot just 26 percent (16-for-60) from the field, including a 7-for-31 showing in the second half.  The Bearcat defense was also able to limit Bethany, the PAC's leading three-point shooting team, to just 19 percent from long range (4-for-21).

The Bearcats will return to action on Saturday afternoon, traveling to Waynesburg University for a 1:30 start.