SPRINGFIELD, Mass. – Unbeaten and No. 1-ranked West Liberty more than lived up to its billing in Wednesday night's Elite Eight quarterfinal against Anderson, S.C.
Coach
Jim Crutchfield's high-flying Hilltoppers wowed the crowd at the MassMutual Center with a 61-point second-half explosion, racing away to a 113-95 victory against the shell-shocked Trojans.
West Liberty (33-0) advanced to Thursday's 8:30 p.m. semifinal game against BYU-Hawaii (21-8), which eased past Bloomfield, N.J., 96-89, in Wednesday's late quarterfinal.
The Hilltoppers drained 16 3-point field goals – the second-highest total in Elite Eight history – and had four players score 20 or more points while collecting 17 steals and harassing Anderson (21-12) into a staggering 29 turnovers in a dominant performance.
West Liberty struggled against an inspired Trojan squad in the early going, missing its first five shots from the floor and committing six turnovers in the first three minutes as the South Carolina team bolted out to an 11-0 lead.
“I think we were on track for about 100 turnovers after the first four or five minutes,” Crutchfield said. “I'm willing to chalk some of those up to Elite Eight jitters but we definitely need to do a better job of hanging onto the ball if we want to win this tournament.”
The margin ultimately reached 14 points – the Hilltoppers' largest deficit of the season – when a Tyrell McDowell 3-pointer doubled up West Liberty, 28-14, midway through the opening half but that proved to be the high-water mark for the Trojans.
“We weren't playing that well but I liked the pace of the game at that point,” Crutchfield said. “This is how we played all year to get to this point so I certainly wasn't going to change things up now. We're going to dance with the horse who brought us here.”
That faith in the system was soon rewarded.
John Wolosinczuk splashed home the Hilltoppers' second 3-pointer of the night at 9:45 of the first half and the floodgates finally swung open.
Corey Pelle followed with another 3-point bomb and then stole the in-bounds pass and shoveled the ball to
Alex Falk for a quick layup to cap a blurry-fast 8-0 run over a 31-second span.
Chris Morrow came off the bench to nail a couple of 3-pointers and WLU's full-court defensive pressure began paying dividends as the deficit started to shrink.
A twisting bank shot by Pelle tied the score at 39 with 3:42 remaining and
Jordan Fortney's 3-pointer at the 3:13 mark put the Hilltoppers ahead to stay.
“I was pretty nervous early on because we haven't been down that much all year,” Pelle said. “But Coach stayed very positive in the huddle during the (media) timeouts. He kept saying, 'We will come back, we will come back' and he was right.”
West Liberty took a 52-47 lead into the locker room at intermission and picked up right where it left off when play resumed.
The Hilltoppers stretched the lead to 20 points, 80-60, in the first six minutes of the second half and led by as many as 27 points down the stretch before coasting to the finish line.
The 6-6 Morrow hit 10-of-11 shots from the floor – including a 4-of-4 showing from the 3-point arc – and tied a career-high with 25 points to lead all scorers.
“I don't think I've ever had a shooting game like that,” Morrow said. “I was just trying to focus on taking good shots and not force anything. Thankfully, they were falling for me tonight.”
Pelle, voted a first-team NCAA Division II All-American earlier this week, put on another dazzling display with 21 points, 9 assists, 4 steals and an assortment of highlight-reel material. Wolosinczuk and Falk added 20 points each.
Freshman guard Denzail Jones led five double-figure scorers for Anderson with 20 points.
GAME NOTES
X West Liberty's win was only the second Elite Eight victory ever by a WVIAC team. Salem-Teikyo beat Elizabeth City State (N.C.), 91-74, in the 1997 quarterfinals before dropping an 81-68 decision to Cal State-Bakersfield in the semifinals
X Pelle became only the third West Liberty player ever to hand out more than 200 assists in a season. His 204 assists are seven shy of John Burns' 1989-90 school record of 211. Rodney Turner had 202 in 1982-83.
X Anderson had defeated No. 3 Augusta State (Ga.) and No. 10 Lincoln Memorial in last week's Southeast Regional tournament
X The record for 3-point field goals in an Elite Eight game is held by Troy (Ala.), which hit 23 long-range shots in a 126-123 win against Southern New Hampshire in a 1993 semifinal
X Thursday's semifinal game will be televised live on CBS College Sports Television (Channel 274 on Wheeling-area Comcast systems)
X West Liberty fans can listen to the Hilltoppers' radio team of Reid Amos and
Aaron Huffman on KISS-FM 95.7 (Wheeling), WKKX-AM 1600 (Wheeling), WSWW-AM 1490 (ESPN Radio, Charleston) and WGLZ-FM 91.5 (West Liberty).
