GREENVILLE, S.C. – The Samford women's basketball team dropped the regular season finale to the Furman Paladins by a score of 62-45 on Saturday.
 
Samford concludes the regular season with a 13-16 overall record and a 7-7 mark in Southern Conference play. Furman moves to 3-11 in the league and 11-18 overall. 
 
Andrea Bailey led all Bulldog scorers with 10 on the afternoon. Sussy Ngulefac added nine more, while Kiersten Nelson paced all Samford reserves with six points off the bench. 
 
The Samford trio of Ngulefac, Masyn Marchbanks and Nelson each pulled down a team-high five rebounds in the defeat. 
 
To go along with her five boards, Marchbanks also had eight assists and eight rebounds.
 
Ngulefac opened the contest by making just 34 seconds into the game before Furman ripped off a 22-3 run in the first quarter that was only broken up by a Carley Heidger three-pointer. The Paladins led 22-7 after the opening frame. 
 
Furman led by as many as 20 in the second quarter before Marchbanks and Bailey spurred a 12-2 run that brought Samford back within striking distance at 32-21. Furman answered with two quick buckets in the last two minutes to take a 36-21 lead into the locker room at the break.
 
The second half began with quick back-to-back buckets from Marchbanks and Kathleen Wheeler. Furman answered with a 10-0 run that put the game away for good as the Paladin lead was 51-35 heading into the fourth quarter.
 
In the fourth, Samford cut the deficit to 14 on two separate occasions before Furman pulled away for the 62-45 final.
 
Samford will head to the SoCon Tournament as the sixth seed and will either face ETSU or Mercer in the quarterfinals on Thursday. 
 
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