WEST LIBERTY, W.Va. – The Walsh University women's basketball got hot at the right time here Tuesday afternoon and pulled away to an 86-65 win against a cold-shooting West Liberty squad in non-conference action at the ASRC.
    Coach Kyle Cooper's Lady Hilltoppers (7-5) and the Cavaliers (8-4) battled on virtually even terms for most of the day in a game that featured 14 ties and 9 lead changes but that all changed late in the third quarter.
    A pair of Brandi Beader free throws gave WLU its final lead of the day, 50-49, with 2:44 remaining in the third quarter but Walsh scored the final five points of the frame to take a 54-50 lead into the final 10 minutes and kept right on going when play resumed.
    The Cavaliers scored the first eight points of the fourth quarter to open up a 62-50 lead. The Hilltoppers' Marissa Brown tried to stop the bleeding by sandwiching a pair of power post moves around a layup by Walsh's Mayci Sales, cutting the lead to 62-52 as the clock turned under 7 minutes but it was too little, too late.
    Jamie Halloran knocked down back-to-back 3-point daggers on the visitors' next two possessions for a 70-54 lead and West Liberty, which finished the day just 4-of-24 from the 3-point arc, lacked the firepower to recover.
    "We knew coming in that Walsh is a very good team that's extremely well-coached," Cooper said. "The hard part for me was that we did so many things that are just uncharacteristic of who we are as a program. We missed some shots early and it just looked like we started thinking about the last play instead of the next play.
    "We have a lot of prolific shooters who play with the swagger that even if they miss a shot, they know the next one is going in," Cooper said. "For the first time in a while, we didn't have that today and that's very uncharacteristic of this group."
    Brown led all scorers with 29 points, 11 rebounds and 4 blocks while Olivia Belknap added 15 points off the bench and Brandi Beader chipped in with 13 points, 6 rebounds and 4 assists for a short-handed WLU squad playing without injured junior guard Taylor Johnson and her 17.5 ppg. scoring average.
    "Obviously, not having Taylor available takes another playmaker off the court for us," Cooper said, "but that doesn't change the fact that we should have been in this game. Our program has progressed to the point where we have talent beyond Taylor but that talent has to play together in order to be successful and that's what it came down to today."
    Walsh shot nearly 80 percent (11-of-14) from the floor in the fourth quarter, including 5-for-5 from the 3-point arc, to post a 32-15 bulge over the final 10 minutes. Sales paced five double-figure scorers for the visitors with 18 points.
    After heading home for the Christmas break, the Lady Hilltoppers won't hit the court again until Jan. 10 when they host West Virginia State in a 5:30 p.m. game at the ASRC.