WEST LIBERTY, W.Va. – Kiki Simpson became the school's career rebounding leader and the No. 19 West Liberty University women won their eighth straight game, holding off West Virginia State, 78-73, Monday night at the ASRC.

Simpson, a 5-11 senior from Columbus, Ohio, grabbed an arena-record 21 rebounds to reach 924 rebounds for her career. That broke the previous record of 918 retrieves set by former Hilltopper All-American Tori Hansen from 2007-11.

"I'm really happy to see Kiki get that record," West Liberty head coach Lynn Ullom said. "Kiki is one of the hardest-working women's basketball players in the country and that record is a shining example of what hard work can do.

"She came here with a motor that never stops and even though she didn't get a lot of playing time as a freshman, Kiki worked tirelessly at the other parts of her game and made herself into one of the most dominant low-post players in NCAA Division II."

West Liberty (10-1, 5-0) was seeing its first action in nearly three weeks due to the holiday break and struggled to find its shooting touch throughout the night against the scrappy Yellow Jackets (5-6, 2-3).

State took a 38-35 lead into the locker room at halftime after WLU shot just 31 percent from the floor for the first 20 minutes but the hosts wasted little time going ahead to stay when play resumed.

Liz Flowers drained a 3-pointer just two minutes into the third quarter for a 43-41 Hilltopper advantage and West Liberty never trailed again.

The Hilltoppers took a 56-49 lead into the fourth quarter and led by double-figures on several occasions down the stretch before the Yellow Jackets made things more respectable in the waning minutes.

"This was probably one of the worst games we've had in terms of effort and attention to detail in a long time," Ullom said. "We have some really talented kids so we were able to do enough to get the win but, all in all, it was a pretty lackluster performance."

Flowers led all scorers with a game-high 27 points while Baylen Dyrlund came off the bench with a career-high 17 points while collecting 8 rebounds. Kailee Howe added 10 points and 9 assists.

Laura Szorenyi's 20 points paced West Virginia State, which also got 14 points from Deyahnna Styles and 13 more from Shealyn Shafer.

The Hilltoppers return to action on Wednesday with a 5:30 p.m. game against Charleston at the Civic Center Coliseum.