Women's Basketball | 2/20/2014 10:11:00 PM
Box Score WEST LIBERTY, W.Va. – The West Liberty University women's basketball team rolled to its 10th straight winThursday night, breezing past West Virginia Wesleyan, 75-57, at the ASRC.
Coach Lynn Ullom's Hilltoppers (18-8, 15-5) took command with a 24-2 run midway through the first half and the Bobcats (2-21, 0-19) never recovered in sagging to their 18th consecutive loss.
West Liberty drained 11 3-point field goals in the first half to take a 44-27 lead at intermission. Despite struggling with turnovers throughout, the Hilltoppers led by as many as 28 points in the second half. Wesleyan scored 12 of the game's last 14 points to make the final margin more respectable.
"We played about 10 minutes of really good basketball in the first half tonight," Ullom said. "That was enough for us to beat a 2-21 basketball team but I was very disappointed in our levels of concentration and execution."
The Bobcats took advantage of a sluggish start by the hosts to jump out to a 12-6 lead in the first four minutes of play.
That seemed to serve as a wake-up call as West Liberty clamped down on the defensive end and held Wesleyan to just one field goal over the next 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the court, the Hilltoppers were shooting their way back into the game from the perimeter.
West Liberty went ahead to stay, 16-14, on a Kailee Howe 3-pointer as the clock ticked past the 12-minute mark. Bri Kamarec followed with back-to-back bonus bombs and the Hilltoppers were on their way. Consecutive 3-pointers by Liz Flowers and Howe closed out the 24-2 run, putting WLU on top, 30-14, with 5:21 to play and the Bobcats never threatened again.
Although he was pleased to come away with the win, especially after showing up at No. 10 in the first set of Atlantic Region rankings earlier in the week, Ullom said the Hilltoppers still had work to do.
"We've been streaky all year," Ullom said, "but we had been doing a better job of extending the good stretches and minimizing the bad ones the past few games. Tonight I thought we fell back into the trap where our bad spurts were really bad.
"That cost us some games in the first semester and one thing I think we've proven with this winning streak is that we're a better basketball team than that. We've put ourselves in position to make this a special season but in order to do that, we have to do a better job of maintaining our concentration and discipline on both ends of the court."
Flowers led all scorers with a game-high 26 points and Howe finished with 15 points and 8 assists. Jasmin Kiley had 13 points, Kamarec added 10 markers and Kiki Simpson cleared a team-high 10 rebounds. Kacey Johnson had 16 points to pace the visitors.
West Liberty faces a tough test on Saturday, traveling to Glenville to take on a No. 9-ranked Glenville State team that is No. 1 in the Atlantic Region. Tipoff is set for 2 p.m.
GAME NOTES
X West Liberty has clinched a first-round bye in next month's MEC Tournament
X The Hilltoppers have a 114-27 (.807) record in February games since 2000-01
X West Liberty's 10-game winning streak is its longest since the 2010-11 squad also ran off 10 straight wins from Nov. 19, 2010 to Jan. 8, 2011
X The Hilltoppers are 18-1 when outshooting their opponents from the floor this season but 0-7 when being outshot by their opponents
X In addition to the 10-game winning streak, West Liberty has won 12 of its last 13 games
