Men's Basketball | 1/5/2011 11:22:52 PM

BOX SCORE

WHEELING, W.Va. – John Wolosinczuk powered home a layup with less than 6 seconds remaining Wednesday night to lift No. 2 West Liberty to an 86-84 victory against upset-minded Wheeling Jesuit before a near-capacity crowd at the Cardinals' McDonough Center.

“We needed a game like this,” said WLU head coach Jim Crutchfield, whose Hilltoppers (10-0, 6-0) had won their first nine games by an average of more than 49 points. “It's a long season and you're not going to blow everyone out so we needed to see how we'd respond in a close game.”

Wheeling Jesuit (5-3, 3-3) trailed 84-79 with 4:57 to go after West Liberty's Jordan Fortney – the nation's leading 3-point shooter – drained his seventh bonus bomb of the night but the Cardinals refused to fold.

Turning the matchup between the nation's two highest-scoring teams into a defensive struggle, Wheeling Jesuit slowly began chipping away at the lead while forcing the Hilltoppers into several empty possessions.

A fast break layup by Ben Siefert trimmed the deficit to 84-81 with 3:14 remaining and a Steve Catich free throw cut it to 84-82 with 2:05 left.

The Cardinals' Andre Harris – a thorn in West Liberty's side all night – brought the crowd to its feet as the clock ticked under a minute when he came up with a steal and dribbled the length of the court. Harris was fouled while making the game-tying layup with 57 seconds left but missed the free throw that would have put the hosts on top.

The Hilltoppers have not trailed in the second half of any game this season.

West Liberty's Barry Shetzer missed a 3-point shot at the other end and Harris once more came barreling down the lane in search of the go-ahead basket only to see the Hilltoppers' Corey Pelle step in to draw a clutch charging call with 38 seconds remaining.

With the score still tied at 84 and a 3-second differential between the shot clock and the game clock, West Liberty ran the game clock down to 18 seconds before Crutchfield called a timeout to set the play.

“It turned out to be one of those rare times when everything works exactly the way the coach draws it up during the timeout,” Crutchfield said.

“They had been running their center out to cover Jordan in the corner whenever he ran the baseline, which meant one of their smaller forwards had to drop down and cover (the 6-7 Wolosinczuk) on the block. Our first option was for John to get a seal and Jordan to dump the ball in to John. We told John to go up strong, looking for a basket or a foul, and that's exactly what he did because he wasn't wide open. It was a great finish.”

Wheeling Jesuit hustled the ball back upcourt and Recardo Gaddy got off a hurried 3-point attempt. The buzzer sounded as the ball bounced high off the iron once, then twice, before falling harmlessly to the court to preserve the Hilltoppers' 86-84 win.

Fortney led four double-figure scorers for West Liberty with 25 points – including a 7-of-13 showing from behind the 3-point arc – while Wolosinczuk posted a double-double with 18 points and 15 rebounds. Shetzer added 16 points and Corey Pelle finished with 14 points and 6 steals.

Harris scored 17 of his game-high 26 points in the second half for Wheeling Jesuit, which also got 18 points and 10 rebounds from Catich.

Crutchfield wasn't disappointed about seeing his team's streak of consecutive 100-point games halted at nine. As he noted, the only thing that really mattered in the end was pushing the Hilltoppers' winning streak into double figures.

“Even though we had the two highest-scoring teams in the country here tonight, I guarantee you the only thing either team cared about once the game started was scoring one point more than the other team. I thought Wheeling was very well prepared and played with great intensity. This game will make us a better basketball team.”

The Hilltoppers return home to host Glenville State on Saturday. Tipoff is set for 4 p.m. at the ASRC.