Courtesy of John Leisering

ERIE, Pa. - The Behrend women's basketball team tuned up for the Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference (AMCC) playoffs with a convincing 81-49 win over visiting Pitt-Greensburg Saturday afternoon.

The Lions won their 20th game of the season (20-5) and finished AMCC competition 12-2. Behrend will get a first-round bye in the AMCC playoffs and head to top-seed LaRoche next weekend for the final four. The Lions have now won four straight. Pitt-Greensburg ended regular-season play 13-12 and 9-5.

Behrend used 15 players during the 40-minute contest and got 19 points from Rachel Majewski (Erie, PA/Villa Maria Academy), 14 from Morgan Altavilla (Pittsburgh, PA/Baldwin) and 10 from Julia Balaski (Mercer, PA/Mercer). The Lions led 27-15 after a quarter, 52-28 at the half and 68-39 after three. Sidney McCully led Pitt-Greensburg with a dozen. 

Behrend will play the winner of the Mt. Aloysius/Pitt-Greensburg game, scheduled Tuesday night in Greensburg, Friday night at 8:30 at LaRoche. The Lions won both regular season games against the Bobcats by a combined 61 points and bested the Mounties in both meetings by a collective 83 points. 

Before the game, Behrend paid tribute to seniors McKenzie Hovis (Knox, PA/Keystone), Jordan Swartz (Economy, PA/Ambridge) and Brianna Dean (New Castle, PA/Neshannock).