WEST LIBERTY, W.Va. – The No. 22-ranked West Liberty University men's basketball team fired off a 20-2 barrage over a 3-minute span of the first half and never looked back here Saturday in blasting West Virginia State, 112-84, in a Mountain East Conference romp at the ASRC.
    Coach Ben Howlett's up-tempo Hilltoppers (7-3, 4-2) forced 26 turnovers and led by as many as 34 points down the stretch in rolling to their 19th consecutive victory against the Yellow Jackets (6-3, 3-3).
    "We got back to our brand of basketball tonight," Howlett said. "We challenged some guys in the shoot-around and they really responded. The effort was great all night. We had guys flying around all over the floor, forcing turnovers, hitting the boards and having fun. We were much better offensively, as well. The spacing was really good and we moved well without the ball. It was West Liberty basketball."
    West Virginia State, which was coming off wins in three of its last four games, kept things interesting for a while with some hot early shooting and held an 18-10 lead with 12:09 left in the first half.
    The Hilltoppers quickly whittled down the deficit and mashed the gas pedal to the floor.
    After pulling into a 27-27 tie, Dalton Bolon's jumper with 6:36 on the first half clock not only put West Liberty ahead to stay, it lit the fuse on a WLU explosion.
    The Black and Gold's full-court pressure seemed to find another gear, forcing four straight turnovers and fueling a 12-0 spurt that gave the hosts their first double-digit lead, 39-27, at the 5:02 mark.
    Jeremiah Moore tried to stop the bleeding for State with a short jumper, making it 39-29, but Pat Robinson III kept the Hilltoppers rolling with back-to-back hoops and the rout was on.
    When Malik McKinney capped the 20-2 blackout with a driving layup as the clock ticked past three minutes, WLU had turned a 27-27 molehill into a 47-29 mountain and took a 51-33 lead into halftime.
    Robinson, in his first season at WLU after transferring from Holy Family (Pa.), came off the bench to lead all scorers with a game-high 24 points. The 6-3 sophomore guard said team chemistry played a major role in Saturday's win.
    "Coach (Howlett) really focused on getting us to play together and you could see things starting to click for us," Robinson said. "We're scoring off wide open layups and creating fast break opportunities. Everything comes so much easier when we're working with each other."
    State mounted a brief rally when play resumed, trimming the margin back to single digits, 56-47, about five minutes into the second half but the Black and Gold quickly regained the upper hand.
    The lead was back up to 18 points, 78-60, at the 10-minute mark after back-to-back Preston Boswell baskets and reached 34 points, 108-74, on Robinson's final hoop of the night with three minutes to play.
    Robinson drained 5 3-pointers as part of his 24-point night while Bolon finished with a double-double of 21 points and 11 rebounds. Will Yoakum added 20 points, Boswell finished with 17 and Malik McKinney contributed 14 more off the bench. Jon Alessandro grabbed 10 rebounds while Luke Dyer checked off a number of boxes on the stat sheet with 5 points, 6 assists, 6 steals and 6 rebounds.
    "We're not used to dealing with a lot of adversity here," Bolon noted, referring to the Hilltoppers' two early conference losses, "but I think adversity is what makes good teams into great teams. Being forced to deal with it now helped pull us together as a team and gave guys like Luke and Bos (Boswell) the opportunity to step up as vocal leaders."
    Glen Abram and Frank Agyemang paced five double-figure scorers for West Virginia State with 16 points each.
    The Hilltoppers step out of conference play on Thursday to host Ohio Valley University in a 7:30 p.m. game at the ASRC.