Men's Basketball | 2/17/2018 6:40:00 PM

Box Score

    WEST LIBERTY, W.Va. – Dan Monteroso scored his 1,000^th career point and No. 5 West Liberty clinched the outright Mountain East Conference championship here Saturday with a 105-66 thrashing of Glenville State before a large crowd at the ASRC.
    It's the eighth conference title in the past nine seasons for the Hilltoppers (24-1, 19-1), who have averaged an eye-popping 30 wins a year over that span. It also locks up the No. 1 seed in the upcoming MEC Tournament.
    "I'm extremely happy that we are the outright MEC champions," Howlett said. "That's a credit to the leadership and abilities of our three seniors – Dan Monteroso, Brandon Smith and Jordan Watson. We are going to try to ride their coattails and keep this going into March."
    West Liberty took the suspense out of Saturday's game in a hurry as the Hilltoppers jumped on the Pioneers (6-20, 4-16) from the opening tap.
    The Black and Gold led by as many as 25 points, 40-15, with eight minutes left in the opening half before settling for a 57-41 advantage at the break.
    "To be honest, I thought this game was a struggle for us," Howlett said. "We didn't shoot the ball well all night and we didn't do a good job of finishing the first half. I'll take the blame for that because I went a little crazy with the substitutions.
    "I thought we played better in the second half but I guess that's the sign of a good team when you can win by this kind of margin and the coach still thinks you didn't play very well."
    West Liberty opened the second half with an 18-4 burst, capped by a Monteroso 3-pointer, to go up by 30 points, 75-45, with 13:25 on the clock and coasted the rest of the way.
    Monteroso finished with a game-high 22 points, making him the 49^th member of the Hilltoppers' 1,000-point club with 1,005 points – something that he admits never crossed his mind a couple of years ago when he was a wide receiver at Purdue.
    "Right now, I'm more excited about winning the outright championship than the 1,000 points," the St. Clairsville, Ohio native said. "I'm really happy Coach Howlett put me in a situation where I could play basketball again but the coaches picked us to finish third in this league before the season.
    "That bothered me and it bothered a lot of our guys so it probably served as a little motivation. It's definitely a good feeling to be sitting here right now as champions. It stinks that this is my last season so I want to keep this going as long as we can."
    Monteroso was the only starter in double-figures for the Hilltoppers but Tyler Primmer and Jordan Watson added 15 and 14 points, respectively, off the bench while Smith chipped in with 11 points in just 16 minutes of action.
    The Hilltopper defense held Glenville to just 31 percent (21-of-67) shooting from the floor, including just a 4-of-19 (21 percent) showing from the 3-point arc. Dwayne Chastain and Jon Dunmyer topped the visitors with 14 points each.
    The West Liberty men head to South Euclid, Ohio on Wednesday for a 7:30 p.m. tipoff against Notre Dame.