WEST LIBERTY, W.Va. – The surging West Liberty University women's basketball team scored 16 of the game's first 20 points Monday night and never looked back in sprinting away to an 88-55 victory against Ohio Valley University at a snow-bound ASRC.

The fifth win in the last six games for Coach Lynn Ullom's Hilltoppers (14-6, 12-4) was delivered in a much more convincing fashion than the season's first meeting between the teams, which saw the Fighting Scots (1-19, 1-15) push West Liberty into double-overtime before falling by a 77-69 count.

“We did a much better job of pushing the tempo and making them play at our pace tonight,” Ullom said. “They have some really big kids who can be awfully hard to guard in the half-court. We were much more aggressive on defense tonight, which led to a lot of open court opportunities. That's the way we like to play.”

The Hilltopper defense smothered OVU in the early going, holding the visitors to just 4 points over the first 7 minutes as West Liberty opened up a 16-4 lead. The margin never dropped below double-figures the rest of the night.

West Liberty led by as many as 24 points in the opening half but settled for a 43-24 advantage at the half.

The Fighting Scots did mount a brief challenge after play resumed, reeling off 10 unanswered points to trim the gap to 49-38 as the clock ticked past 14 minutes.

Hillary Southworth had the answer for the Hilltoppers as the nation's second-leading scorer wrapped a pair of 3-point bombs around two free throws in less than 2 minutes and the lead was back out to 19 points, 57-38, with 12:02 remaining.

Southworth's flurry touched off a 22-4 West Liberty run, capped by a pair of Meghan Wiseman free throws that put the game on ice, 71-42, with 6:41 remaining.

Southworth led all scorers with 27 points while freshman point guard Liz Flowers added 17 points, 10 assists and 6 rebounds in an impressive performance. Jenn Mohney came off the bench to round out the double-figure scorers with 10 points.

“We really work to create shots for Hillary,” Ullom said, “and I thought she did a great job tonight of not forcing things and letting the game come to her. Liz has been flying under the radar a little bit this season but if you look back at the last few games, she's stuffing the stat sheet every night.”

Shelby Way's 17 points paced Ohio Valley while Jasmine Gibson added a dozen points off the bench.

The Lady Hilltoppers hit the road on Saturday for a 2 p.m. game at Alderson-Broaddus.

GAME NOTES

X Southworth was 8-for-8 from the foul line on Monday and has hit 35-of-38 from the stripe in her last four games

X This was West Liberty's 33rd consecutive win against the Fighting Scots, giving them a 33-1 lead in the all-time series.

X The Hilltoppers improved to 100-26 (.xxx) in February games since the 2000-01 season