WEST LIBERTY, W.Va. – The West Liberty University women's basketball team held onto its share of first place in the Mountain East Conference Monday night with an impressive 89-53 rout of West Virginia State at the ASRC.

Coach Lynn Ullom's Hilltoppers (14-7, 11-4) placed five players in double-figures and held the Yellowjackets (6-13, 4-10) to just 19 first-half points in completing the season sweep of the MEC series.

Ullom pointed to his team's improving defensive numbers as the key to the win, noting that State managed just 2 points in the first 6 minutes of the game and was never able to put together a serious challenge.

"It is getting better on that end of the floor," Ullom said. "Slowly but surely we're playing better team defense and we talked about that at halftime. We hadn't shot the ball well at all in the first half but because we made a determined effort to guard people, we were still able to get into the locker room with a very nice lead."

The Hilltoppers had cruised into intermission with a 39-19 cushion and that margin mushroomed when the shots began to drop in the final 20 minutes. West Liberty scorched the nets at a 9-of-14 (64 percent) clip from the 3-point arc in the second half and led by as many as 41 points down the stretch.

Liz Flowers and Kailee Howe each came close to compiling a triple-double. Flowers led all scorers with 18 points while grabbing 8 rebounds and handing out 7 assists. Howe – who leads the nation in assists – finished with 16 points, 10 assists and 6 rebounds. Kiki Simpson had a game-high 11 rebounds in just 19 minutes of action.

A trio of Hilltoppers came off the bench to join the double-figure scoring party. Jenn Mohney drained 4-of-5 3-pointers to rack up 14 points while Jasmin Kiley added 13 points and Baylen Dyrlund had a career-high 12 points to go along with 6 rebounds and 4 steals. West Liberty also had 25 assists on 36 field goals.

"I thought we shared the ball exceptionally well tonight," Ullom said. "That created a lot of easy scoring chances."

Aurreshae Hines was State's only double-figure scorer with 13 points.

The Hilltoppers return to action on Thursday when they host Concord. Tipoff is set for 5:30 p.m. at the ASRC.