Women's Basketball | 1/25/2014 3:45:00 PM
Box Score URBANA, Ohio – The West Liberty University women's basketball team put on a rebounding clinic Saturday afternoon and knocked off Urbana, 73-58, in a Mountain East Conference shocker at the Blue Knights' snowbound Grimes Center.
Coach Lynn Ullom's Hilltoppers (10-8, 7-5) had three players finish with double-figure rebounds as West Liberty muscled its way to a whopping 61-30 advantage off the glass.
Leading the way was freshman Colleen McCormick, who poured in 22 points and cleared 14 boards – both game- and career-highs – off the bench.
McCormick had plenty of support as sophomore guard Liz Flowers also set a career-high with a dozen rebounds while chipping with 13 points. Sophomore post Kiki Simpson, the MEC's leading rebounder at 11.4 rpg., finished with 8 points and 11 rebounds despite missing nearly the entire second half with foul trouble.
The start of the game was delayed 15 minutes as the Hilltoppers didn't get to the Grimes Center until 20 minutes before the scheduled 1 p.m. tipoff due to the poor travel conditions.
Not surprisingly, West Liberty stumbled coming out of the blocks and Urbana (12-4, 9-3) – the second-place team in the MEC – controlled the first 10 minutes of play, opening the game with back-to-back 3-point field goals and leading by as many as 7 points before the midway mark of the opening half.
Trailing 20-15 with a little more than 9 minutes left in the half, the Hilltoppers turned the game completely around with a 17-4 run.
McCormick came up huge during the surge, accounting for 9 of the 17 points with two 3-pointers and a trio of free throws. Jasmin Kiley – who had 12 points on the day – capped the spurt with a driving layup at 4:32 and Urbana, now on the short end of a 32-24 count, called a timeout to stop the bleeding.
There was no stopping the Black and Gold on this day, however.
West Liberty took a 40-31 lead into the locker room at intermission and pushed it out to a 12-point bulge at 46-34 on a Kiley 3-pointer as the clock turned past 18 minutes. Urbana never got the margin under double figures the rest of the way and the Hilltoppers led by as many as 20 points down the stretch.
Urbana was held to 35 percent (23-of-65) shooting from the floor and made just 2 of its last 13 3-point tries after burying the first 2 of the game.
Kennedy Boggs and Kate Francisco paced the Blue Knights with 12 points each. Leading scorer DeVonyea Johnson (21.1 ppg.) was held to just 6 points – the first time this season she failed to reach double-figures.
West Liberty returns to action on Thursday when the Hilltoppers host Notre Dame (OH). Tipoff is set for 5:30 p.m. at the ASRC.
