WEST LIBERTY, W.Va. – The West Liberty University women's basketball team closed the first half on a 15-4 run and never looked back Saturday afternoon in racing away to an 83-62 victory against Urbana in Mountain East Conference action at the ASRC.

In avenging a first-semester loss to the Blue Knights (1-17, 1-11) in convincing fashion, Coach Lynn Ullom's Lady Hilltoppers (12-6, 9-3) showed a little resiliency in bouncing back from a disappointing home loss to Wheeling Jesuit less than 48 hours earlier.

"You're never sure how a team is going to react after a loss," Ullom said, "but I thought our girls did a good job of putting Thursday's game behind them and focusing on the task at hand. We did a much better job of listening to the scouting report with the little tweaks and twists we have for each opponent and it paid off."

After struggling to find its shooting touch in the early going, West Liberty broke open what had been a close game in the final 4 minutes of the opening half.

Kiki Simpson put WLU ahead to stay, 25-23, when she was fouled on a putback and cashed in the free throw for a conventional 3-point play with 3:47 left in the half.

Emily Bucon followed with a 3-point bomb to fuel the surge and Jenn Mohney capped the 15-4 run just before halftime when she drained a transition 3-point rainbow on a feed from Hillary Southworth.

That put the Hilltoppers up 37-27 at the break and the Black and Gold wasted little time stretching the margin when play resumed.

Another Mohney 3-pointer – she tied a career-high with 6 bonus bombs – followed by Kailee Howe's steal and coast-to-coast runout gave WLU its first 20-point lead, 55-35, with 13:33 remaining and the rout was on. West Liberty led by as many as 29 points down the stretch.

"We took a step forward defensively today," Ullom said. "We still have a long way to go but we did some good things on defense, especially in the second half, and it helped us get out on that run."

Howe had another huge game with 18 points and 15 assists while Mohney added 18 points with her 6 3-pointers. Southworth had 16 points and 8 rebounds, Liz Flowers added 14 points and Simpson had 9 points to go along with a game-high 13 rebounds.

Tori Purk led four double-figure scorers for Urbana with 16 points.

West Liberty returns to action on Thursday with a 5:30 p.m. game at Notre Dame (Ohio).

GAME NOTES

X Neither team missed a free throw. Urbana was 17-of-17 from the stripe while West Liberty hit all four of its charity tosses

X Just a junior, Simpson collected her 600th career rebound during the first half

X With 1,315 points, Southworth is No. 10 on WLU's career scoring list, just 2 points behind No. 9 Joanna Bernabei

X Howe leads the nation with an average of 9.6 assists per game. Amy Philamlee of Union (Tenn.) is a distant second at 8.1 apg.