“This was the most disappointing and shocking loss of my career,” Hilltopper coach Lynn Ullom said. “I've never had a team crumble that badly down the stretch in the past 20 years.”

The loss spoiled an impressive second-half comeback effort by West Liberty (19-4, 14-3), which didn't take its first lead until Meghan Wiseman's power post move put the hosts on top, 41-39, at 17:53 of the second half.

The Hilltoppers never trailed again until Dalton's game-winner and appeared to have put the game on ice when a 13-2 run produced the largest lead of the night, 70-55, with 4:52 remaining.

West Liberty took a 74-60 lead into the final 3 minutes after Wiseman muscled inside for another hoop at the 3:06 mark but that not only proved to be the Hilltoppers' last basket, it turned out to be their final shot.

Pitt-Johnstown's Sheena Aden ignited the UPJ rally with a pair of free throws at 2:57 and the Mountain Cats immediately jumped into a frantic full-court press.

A perfect storm of turnovers and missed free throws – West Liberty was just 1-of-5 from the charity stripe in the final 3 minutes – resulted in a 75-75 tie when Dalton rolled to the hoop for the equalizer with 35 seconds to go.

The Hilltoppers used their final timeout to set up a play but once more struggled to get the ball across midcourt. 

West Liberty's 21st turnover of the night gave the ball back to UPJ with 23 seconds remaining and set up Dalton's winning basket.

“It's pretty simple,” Ullom said. “Our inability to make free throws and take care of the basketball in the last 3 minutes cost us the game.

“I give Pitt-Johnstown all the credit in the world. They were very aggressive in the press and did a good job with their traps. There's always somebody wide open when you double-team the ball but we didn't do a very good job rotating back. We've handled presses all the time but tonight we just froze.”

Wiseman finished with 23 points and 6 blocked shots – both career-highs – while Tori Hansen added 23 points and 10 rebounds. Jenni Robbins chipped in with 14 points and 4 assists.

Aden and Dalton dominated the second half for UPJ. Aden scored 21 of her game-high 31 points in the final 20 minutes while Dalton had 28 points and 14 rebounds – with 17 of the points coming after intermission.

“Every team has to learn how to handle adversity and we got a big dose of it tonight,” Ullom said. “The true measure of a team is how well it responds.”

West Liberty is idle this weekend before going back on the road for a 5:15 tipoff at Alderson-Broaddus on Monday.