WEST LIBERTY, W.Va. – The No. 16-ranked West Liberty men roared out of the gate with a 13-0 surge and never looked back here Wednesday night in blasting Salem (W.Va.), 117-67, in a crowd-pleasing home debut at the ASRC.
    Coach Ben Howlett's Hilltoppers (3-1) forced 15 turnovers and drained 10 3-pointers in the first 20 minutes as they built a 61-30 halftime lead against the shell-shocked Tigers (1-3), who never threatened after coughing up five turnovers against WLU's "blackout" pressure in the first 3 ½ minutes.
    "We needed this game after not playing well in a loss to a very good Daemen team on Saturday," Howlett said. "We had a great film session on Sunday and corrected a lot of our mistakes. One of the big things coming out of that session was passing the ball better and with 24 assists, we did that tonight."
    Will Yoakum, Preston Boswell and Dalton Bolon hit three straight 3-pointers to open the game and a short jumper by Yoakum followed by a Bryce Butler putback made it 13-0 West Liberty before the game was four minutes old.
    Salem didn't back down and a 10-0 Tiger run got the margin back under double-figures, 24-16, on a Malique Ross 3-pointer at 11:27 of the opening half but Butler and Bolon hit back-to-back bonus bombs to make it 30-16 and the Hilltoppers pulled away steadily from there until the final buzzer.
    Bolon finished with a game-high 28 points while sophomore transfer Pat Robinson III added 20 off the bench and Preston Boswell, a junior transfer from Wheeling, added 14 points and a game-high 6 assists. Butler finished with 13 points while Yoakum and Jon Alessandro added 10 each.
    "It was a pretty big challenge adjusting at first because we play so much faster here than at my old school," said Robinson, who earned CACC Freshman of the Year at Holy Family (Pa.) last winter. "But my teammates really helped make it easier for me."
    Fonz Hale topped Salem with 20 points off the bench Marko Tutunovic and Jordan Forbes added 13 and 10 points, respectively. The Tigers finished with 27 turnovers and were held under 40 percent shooting for the night by WLU's aggressive full-court defense.
    Boswell said his experience playing against West Liberty's press during his first two collegiate seasons was a big help in making the transition to the up-tempo style.
    "I came here with an understanding of how other teams look at our press and try to attack it," Boswell said. "I know I hated it when we'd play these guys and they'd get all up in my face. I like being on this side of it."
    With the Mountain East Conference opener set for Saturday afternoon in Urbana, Howlett said he got what he was looking for out of his early-season non-conference schedule despite taking the loss at Daemen on Saturday.
    "We could have stayed home and scheduled easy like a lot of teams but I wanted to challenge these guys. I wanted them to be tested in a hostile environment so we went to Shaw (N.C.) and we went to Daemen. We responded very well against Shaw and we didn't play well at Daemen but give Daemen a lot of credit for that. It was good for us because it showed us where we were as a team; it showed our weaknesses and where we need to improve.
    "I think this team is going to be like last year's team. We're going to improve as the year goes on. We're still young and we're still learning how to play together but I've got 13 guys who aren't afraid of the spotlight and want to play in big games. I like this group."
    The Hilltoppers are set for a 4 p.m. tipoff at Urbana on Saturday.