Rio Grande Sports Information
   PIKEVILLE, Ky. - The University of Rio Grande women's basketball team failed to ride the momentum of a quick first half start against a struggling University of Pikeville squad on Thursday night.
   When given a second opportunity one half later, though, the RedStorm made sure they didn't squander their success.
   Kaylee Helton scored eight of her game-high 21 points in a 15-0 run to begin the second stanza and lead Rio to an 80-69 win over the Bears in Mid-South Conference action at the East Kentucky Expo Center.
   The RedStorm snapped a two-game losing slide with the victory, improving to 17-10 overall and 6-7 in league play.
   "I don't remember, is it Jekyll or Hyde who's the good guy? Whichever one it is finally decided to stick around," said Rio Grande head coach David Smalley. "We came out focused at the start, we took the ball to the glass, our spacing was good and then we just decided we had it under control and that we'd just go through the motions. We went from up seven to down seven and it was frustrating. We communicated some things at halftime and I'm proud of them because we did a much better job on both ends in the second half."
   Rio scored the game's first seven points but, shortly thereafter, Pikeville reeled off 10 straight points of its own to take a 14-11 advantage following a jumper in the lane by Whitney Jackson with 11:30 left before intermission.
   The Bears maintained the lead for most of the remainder of the half, stretching their cushion to as many as seven points, 25-18, after a Kayla Smith layup at the 7:21 mark.
   The RedStorm did rally to take a 31-29 lead thanks to a three-pointer by sophomore guard Kate Hammond (Greenfield, OH) with 4:19 left in the period, but UPike responded with another 6-0 run over the next minute and eventually settled on a 35-33 halftime lead.
   However, a four-minute blitz by Rio to open the second half was more than the Bears could handle.
   Helton, a senior guard from Lucasville, Ohio, score eight of the RedStorm's first 10 points in a 15-0 spurt which produced a 48-35 lead after a short jumper by Hammond with 16:06 left to play.
   Pikeville (4-24, 0-15), which suffered a 17th straight loss, did close to within seven at 53-46 following a bucket by Jackson with 10:40 remaining, but got no closer the rest of the way.
   Rio Grande, which shot a blistering 64.3 percent after halftime (18-for-28), maintained a double-digit lead over the final 9:47 and enjoyed its biggest advantage of the night, 72-55, on the heels of a layup by junior forward Jayvonna Saddler (Cincinnati, OH) with just over four minutes to play.
   "When you hit some shots you should hit, it'll cure what ails you," Smalley said. "And we didn't lose any consistency when we went to our bench. We were finally able to take control and, once we did, we did a pretty good job of closing it out."
   Helton, who also blocked three shots, led a quintet of double-digit performances for the RedStorm.
   Saddler added 16 points to go along with a game-high 10 rebounds and four steals, while junior guard Shardae Morrison-Fountain (Columbus, OH) finished with 12 points and a game-high six assists. Freshman forward Tinesha Taylor (South Point, OH) also netted 12 points - all in the second half - and Hammond chipped in 10 points.
   Jackson led UPike with 15 points and seven rebounds before leaving with an ankle injury with just under 9-1/2 minutes to play. Brogan Conley added 13 points in a losing cause for the Bears, who shot just 35.8 percent (24-for-67) and were outrebounded 42-31.
   Rio's strong shooting performance helped to overcome a whopping 27 turnovers, 15 of which came in the first half.
   "It's a 'W' and we'll take it," said Smalley. "I didn't go in at halftime and say what I wanted to. We just told them we needed to a better job of rebounding the ball, we needed to take better care of the ball and we had to play better one-on-one defense because we couldn't guard a tree in the first half. We did those things in the second half."
   The RedStorm will close out the road portion of their regular season schedule on Saturday at UVA-Wise. Tipoff is set for 2 p.m. An audio webcast of the game will be available at www.ihigh.com/redstorm beginning at 1:45 p.m.