It wasn’t the prettiest basketball game you’ll ever see, but the Pitt-Bradford women likely aren’t complaining.

The Lady Panthers (16-10) defeated Hilbert (11-15) on Wednesday night 69-55 in the first round of the AMCC Tournament. UPB was led by Ali Rinfrette, who scored a game-high 28 points on eight of 12 shooting from the field while going 11 for 12 from the free throw line and adding seven steals.

The game was marked by sloppy play from both sides throughout, as the two sides combined for a whopping 60 turnovers (34 by Hilbert, 26 by UPB).

All of those turnovers led to a very low-scoring first quarter, with Hilbert up just 11-9 after one.

“We started out really sluggish and we couldn’t get in a rhythm,” UPB coach Sean Brown said. “We were fouling, turning the ball over, we just couldn’t find a rhythm.”

Neither team was able to take much of an advantage of all of the errant passing and loose balls, with the lead never eclipsing six points for either squad in the first half.

Hilbert’s main source of offense in the early going came from open three-pointers that came about from exploiting UPB’s pressure defense. The Lady Hawks shot 43 percent from beyond the arc in the first half.

Midway through the second quarter, the Panthers started to capitalize on some better passing, particularly from Darien Lantz (four points, four assists), who came up with several nice dishes.

With a little over two minutes left in the half, Shirleah Ragin (nine points) sunk a trey to give UPB a 25-23 lead, the first time it was out in front since the very beginning of the game. The Panthers went into the half with a 29-25 advantage.

Neither team was shooting particularly poorly (UPB shot 40 percent, Hilbert shot 37 percent in the first half); it was the numerous turnovers that prevented either side from finding a rhythm offensively.

While its offense was still struggling to start the second half, UPB amped up the ‘D’ coming out of the locker room, forcing even more Hilbert turnovers.

With just over three minutes to go in the third, Kaserra Owens came up with a steal and converted the open layup to put the Panthers up 41-31; Owens finished with 14 points and four steals.

UPB was helped out by more than a few Hilbert misses on easy chances, as the Hawks kept failing to convert easy chances in transition. For the game, the Panthers outscored Hilbert 27-11 in points off turnovers.

The Panthers began to pull away midway through the fourth quarter thanks to some nice work on the offensive boards. Despite being outrebounded for the game 35-30, UPB seemed to come up with more important rebounds in the late going.

“Offensive rebounding is one thing we stressed,” Brown said. “When we went into halftime and noticed we only had six offensive rebounds, that was unacceptable. We asked a few girls to step up and they did.”

Leading the way was Brittany Watts, who, in addition to 11 points, added 11 rebounds, nine of which came on the offensive glass.

As she has so often this season, Rinfrette delivered the dagger late in the game, sinking a midrange jumper with about three minutes to go to put UPB up 62-49.

After a slow first half in which she spent more time on the bench than usual, Rinfrette came back strong to take command of her team and the game.

“I thought it was best for her to watch for a little while, to catch the flow and see how things were going, because I thought there were a few opportunities that she may have passed up earlier,” Brown said.

“Once she got back in, I thought she’d be ready to rock and she did. She had an amazing second half.”

All told, the Panthers allowed just one Hilbert player to finish in double figures, with Kelsi Ebert leading the Hawks with 14 points.

Next up for UPB in the AMCC tourney will be Medaille, who the Panthers will face at the Kerr Fitness Center in Pittsburgh on Saturday at 3:30 p.m.

UPB split its two regular season contests against the Lady Mavericks, falling on the road 78-58 on Jan. 11 and winning at home 79-59 on Feb. 8.

“We’ve got to stop them from scoring,” Brown said. “They’re a big-time scoring team. One, we’ve got to box them out, hold them to one shot. Second, we’ve got to defend well. We’ve got to stop them from scoring because they can really put some points up in a hurry. And third, we’ve got to take care of business. We’ve got to put the ball in hole as well.”

HILBERT (55)

Ebert 6-2-4-14, Gawlak 3-0-0-8, Rogers 1-5-6-7, Corts 3-0-0-7, Proy 3-0-0-6, Marion 1-3-4-5, Speidel 1-1-2-4, Repine 2-0-0-4, DeFazio 0-0-0-0, West 0-0-0-0, Mein 0-0-0-0. Totals 20-11-16-55.

PITT-BRADFORD (69)

Rinfrette 8-11-12-28, Owens 7-0-2-14, Watts 4-3-6-11, Ragin 3-1-2-9, Lantz 2-0-1-4, Maciag 1-1-2-3, Guengerich 0-0-0-0, Stringer 0-0-0-0, Colebert 0-0-0-0. Totals 25-16-25-69

Halftime: Pitt-Bradford 29-25

3-point FGs: Hilbert – Gawlak 2, Speidel 1, Corts 1; Pitt-Bradford – Ragin 2, Rinfrette 1.