WEST LIBERTY, W.Va. –
Devin Hoehn scored his 1,000th career point
Thursday night as unbeaten and No. 1-ranked West Liberty broke open a tight game with a 21-0 burst midway through the second half of a 95-71 victory against Shepherd in Mountain East Conference action at the ASRC.
The upset-minded Rams (3-3, 0-3) trailed just 41-39 at halftime and were able to keep things interesting well into the second half of a game that saw 9 ties and 13 lead changes.
When Coach
Jim Crutchfield's high-scoring Hilltoppers (6-0, 3-0) turned up the defensive heat, however, the shots suddenly stopped dropping for the visitors.
"I thought we tightened up on defense a little more in the second half," Crutchfield said. "We were making them take much tougher shots than they were getting in the first half."
West Liberty opened the second half with a 7-0 run to go up 48-39 but back-to-back 3-pointers by the Rams' Ryan McTavish stopped the bleeding.
McTavish hit another 3-pointer at the
14:55 mark to put Shepherd on top, 54-53, and the lead switched hands on four straight possessions before
Seger Bonifant put West Liberty ahead to stay, 57-56, with a strong post move as the clock ticked under 14 minutes.
The Hilltoppers brought the crowd to their feet a couple of minutes later when
Beau Justice turned a steal into a 2-on-1 fast break and fed a sprinting
Zac Grossenbacher for a rim-rocking dunk and a 64-58 WLU lead.
McTavish shook loose on the other end for his fourth 3-pointer of the second half, cutting the margin to 64-61 with12:34 to play but that's when the Hilltoppers slammed the door.
"We switched
Beau Justice over onto McTavish when McTavish got hot and Beau did a really good job of running him off the 3-point line and forcing him into some really difficult shots," Crutchfield said. "That's not something that shows up in the box score but I thought it was really big."
Not only did McTavish not make another shot from the floor the rest of the night, none of the Rams were able to dent the scoreboard for nearly 6 ½ minutes.
Meanwhile, West Liberty was filling it up at the other end of the court.
Justice ignited the decisive 21-0 surge when he finished off a pretty assist from
David Dennis on the ensuing possession and the Hilltoppers followed with four straight 3-point bombs – two by Hoehn – over the next two minutes for a 78-61 lead.
Shepherd's Marcus Adkison finally hit a layup to end the visitors' scoring drought, cutting the lead to 83-63 with a little more than 6 minutes to play, but Hoehn answered with his fourth 3-pointer of the night and Crutchfield began pulling his starters.
Hoehn, a 6-2 junior from Parkersburg, W.Va., became the 47th member of West Liberty's 1,000-Point Club as his 21 points gave him 1,004 points for his career. Bonifant led all scorers with 22 points while Dennis finished with 16 points and a career-high 11 assists to go along with 6 rebounds and a pair of steals for a Hilltopper team that shot a blistering 65 percent (20-of-31) from the floor in the second half.
"Devin missed a lot of time in preseason due to surgery over the summer," Crutchfield said, "but he's looking more and more comfortable out there. David did a real good job of taking the ball to the basket and either finishing or getting open shots for somebody else. Eleven assists is a lot of assists."
McTavish finished with 18 points to lead Shepherd. Skyler Roman and Winston Burgess added 15 and 14 points, respectively, in a losing cause.
West Liberty's win, coupled with Fairmont State's 94-91 victory against Wheeling Jesuit in Fairmont on Thursdaynight, set up an early-season Top 10 showdown on Saturday between the No. 1 Hilltoppers and No. 8 Falcons. Tipoff is set for 4 p.m. at the ASRC.
"That's a real feather in the cap for any conference to have two Top 10 teams going up against each other," Crutchfield said. "I really believe our league is as good as any league in the country right now. We have at least four teams that could be ranked in the Top 25.
"You know this place will be packed and the intensity will be off the charts, which is the way we like it. We'll play as hard as we can for as long as we can. I know we're looking forward to the challenge."
