WHEELING, W.Va. – The West Liberty University women's basketball team slammed the defensive door at the start of the second half Wednesday night and completed a season sweep of Wheeling Jesuit with a 78-61 romp at the McDonough Center.

A strong finish to the first half had given West Liberty (14-13, 11-10) a 37-31 advantage at intermission but head coach Lynn Ullom asked his players to dig a little deeper in his halftime talk.

“I challenged the girls to go out and be unbelievably good on defense for the first 10 minutes,” Ullom said. “I think we held them to one point for quite a while and that helped us open things up. I know we scored 78 points but this game was won on the defensive end.”

The Hilltoppers opened the second half on a 14-1 run with Hillary Southworth and Emily Blevins accounting for all 14 West Liberty points as the visitors opened up what proved to be an insurmountable 51-32 lead with 12:30 remaining.

Wheeling Jesuit (4-21, 1-20) finally got its first basket of the second half on a Kelsey Pacholke jumper with 12:10 remaining – their first field goal since the 6:20 mark of the first half – but the issue had already been decided. The margin never dropped below 13 points the rest of the way.

Blevins led the way with 24 points and 14 rebounds while Southworth added 22 points and Kayla Ayers chipped in with 13 points and 10 rebounds. Cassy Sanderson's 15 points paced the Cardinals.

Southworth tossed in 20 of her 22 points in the second half while Blevins had 14 of her 24 in the opening 20 minutes.

“Emily Blevins really saved us in the first half when Wheeling was doing a good job on our other scorers,” Ullom said. “We want to get to the point where we're winning by committee and not relying on just one or two main scorers. I thought we did a good job of that, especially in the second half.”

The Hilltoppers close out the regular season at home on Saturday with a 2 p.m. game against Davis & Elkins.

GAME NOTES

X Ayers' 13 points put her at 978 points for her career

X West Liberty can clinch a first-round home game in next week's WVIAC Tournament with a win against D&E on Saturday

X Ayers now has 223 career 3-point field goals, leaving her 4 behind WLU Hall of Famer Melissa Hammond for the No. 6 spot among West Liberty's all-time leaders