WEST LIBERTY, W.Va. – After spending the last four seasons putting together a 48-game home winning streak, West Liberty's four senior starters weren't about to let it come to an end in their final game on the home boards.

Coach Jim Crutchfield's unbeaten and No. 1-ranked Hilltoppers overcame their first halftime deficit of the season to beat No. 21 Indiana (Pa.), 89-86, in a thrilling NCAA Division II Atlantic Region championship game before an ecstatic overflow crowd that had jammed its way into the ASRC.

“It's just been so much fun playing together we don't want to leave,” said Corey Pelle, who added the title of Regional Tournament MVP to his WVIAC and Atlantic Region Player of the Year honors from the regular season. “We'll do whatever it takes to win so we can keep on playing.”

For the first time in school history, the Hilltoppers (32-0) will keep on playing at the Elite Eight NCAA Division II national championship tournament in Springfield, Mass.

West Liberty will make its first-ever Elite Eight appearance on March 23 when the Hilltoppers take on unranked Anderson, S.C. (21-11), which notched a 75-73 overtime upset of No. 3-ranked Augusta State, Ga., in Tuesday's night's Southeast Region final at Augusta State.

The road to Springfield was a rocky one for West Liberty on Tuesday night as IUP (26-6), which had beaten the Hilltoppers in last year's Atlantic Region final, was more than primed for the rematch.

Neither team led by more than six points in a see-saw first half which ended with a cold-shooting West Liberty team on the short end of a 38-37 score.

The hole could have been considerably deeper had Chris Morrow, a 6-7 sophomore, not come off the bench with 13 much-needed points for the Black and Gold.

“Chris was really big for us in the first half,” Crutchfield said. “He hit a couple of huge 3-pointers but the most impressive thing to me was the way he took the ball to the basket and scored against their All-American (Darryl Webb), who's just a great player. Chris played with a lot of confidence tonight and we really needed that.”

The Hilltoppers used one of their trademark scoring bursts to gain the upper hand early in the second half.

Jordan Fortney's curl to the hoop with 17:52 on the clock not only put West Liberty ahead to stay, 41-40, it sparked a run of 15 unanswered points in just over four minutes.

“We made one of our runs early in the second half and I thought that was the difference in the game,” Crutchfield said. “We made 3-pointers off a couple of turnovers and strung a bunch of defensive stops together to give ourselves a little separation.”

The highlight of West Liberty's run came when Pelle sailed down the lane and soared into the air for an apparent layup attempt only to whip a last-second baseball pass out to fellow senior John Wolosinczuk for a 3-point bomb which forced IUP into a timeout, trailing 49-40 with 15:56 on the clock.

Coming out of the timeout, the Hilltoppers forced a Crimson Hawks turnover on the in-bounds pass. Pelle quickly stepped into a deep 3-pointer and the crowd erupted in celebration of the game's first double-digit lead, 52-40, with 15:44 to play.

The lead hit 16 points on two occasions, the last time coming at 11:13 when Pelle cashed in an in-bounds pass for a 66-50 advantage, but the Crimson Hawks wouldn't go away.

“Give IUP credit,” Crutchfield said. “I thought we actually played pretty well down the stretch but they hit some really tough shots to get back in the game.”

Webb's conventional 3-point play with 5:17 remaining capped a 13-2 Indiana run and pulled the visitors within a bucket at 75-73.

That was as close as they would get as West Liberty scored 8 of the game's next 10 points to take an 83-75 lead into the final 3 minutes.

Indiana's Scooter Renkin drained a pair of desperation 3-pointers in the final 30 seconds, cutting the lead to 89-86, and the Crimson Hawks got one last chance with 11 seconds remaining only to see two potential tying 3-point attempts fail to drop.

“I think our senior leadership came through for us down the stretch,” Crutchfield said. “Even when IUP was making their run, our offensive execution was outstanding. We were able to run time off the clock and get a good shot every time. That's the advantage of having a veteran team.”

Pelle finished with 23 points, 7 rebounds and 4 assists to lead the winners while Morrow turned in 20 points – including a 3-of-4 showing from behind the 3-point arc – for his night's work. Wolosinczuk – who was named to the All-Tournament Team – added 13 points and 9 rebounds while Falk and Fortney chipped in with 12 and 11 points, respectively.

Webb had a double-double with 23 points and 16 rebounds to lead IUP while Sanders hit 4 3-pointers and finished with 17 points.

“This is a great win for our school, our community and our conference,” Crutchfield said. “It's also a great win for us but we really won't have time to think about that for another couple of weeks. At some point, we'll be able to look back at being 32-0, winning a conference championship, winning the conference tournament, winning a regional championship and realize what a special season this has been.

“The only thing on our minds right now is 'What's next?' As great as this was tonight, our only focus is to see how we do in Springfield, Mass.”

GAME NOTES

X Webb and IUP's Ashton Smith joined Pelle and Wolosinczuk on the All-Tournament Team. Also named to the squad were Raheem Smith of Shaw (N.C.) and Darren Clark of Bowie State (Md.)

X Pelle's 23 points gave him exactly 1,900 points for his career, pushing him past current WLU assistant Eric Bovaird (1,893) into fifth place on the school's all-time scoring list

X West Liberty brought the regional championship home to the WVIAC for the first time since Salem-Teikyo won the 1999 East Region title

X Indiana's six losses this season came by a combined total of just 19 points