WEST LIBERTY, W.Va. – The West Liberty University women's team took control early and never let go here Wednesday night in rolling to an 82-51 victory against West Virginia Wesleyan at the ASRC.
    Coach Kyle Cooper's Hilltoppers (4-3, 1-2) blistered the nets at a 60 percent clip in the opening quarter and held the Bobcats (3-4, 1-2) to 28 percent shooting for the game in an impressive performance.
    "I thought that was probably the most complete game we've played this season," Cooper said. "We shot the ball better today because we shared the ball better today. That's how you get 21 assists on 30 baskets. We did what we needed to do in order to go 1-0 today."
    Although WLU led virtually wire to wire, the Hilltoppers took control for good in the final minute of the first quarter.
    A layup by Wesleyan's Amira Layeni made it a one-possession game, 15-12, as the clock ticked under a minute but WLU junior point guard Audrey Tingle took the inbounds pass and sailed coast to coast for an answering layup and a 17-12 lead at the 56-second mark.
    Morgan Brunner rebounded a Bobcat miss and got the ball to Tingle in transition, who found Olivia Belknap for a wide-open 3-pointer and a 20-12 advantage with 36 seconds to go.
    Taylor Johnson pushed the lead to 22-12 when she cashed in a feed from Tingle on a baseline in-bounds play just before the buzzer.
    The 5-6 Tingle checked off a lot of boxes on the stat sheet with 11 points, 8 rebounds, 5 assists, a steal and a 3-point field goal while committing just one turnover in 33 minutes of play.
    "I'm always looking to get the team going in transition," Tingle said. "We're better when we push the ball up the floor and we capitalized on that tonight."
    Both teams struggled to find the range in the second quarter but the Hilltoppers still carried a 35-19 lead into the locker room. The lead hit 23 points in the third quarter and pushed past 30 points before the night was through.
    Morgan Brunner got a number of quality looks out of the Hilltoppers' half-court passing sets as well as in transition and the senior sharpshooter made the most of them. Brunner knocked down six 3-point shots to lead all scorers with 18 points and notched her first career double-double with 10 rebounds.
    It marked the fourth time in West Liberty's first seven games that Brunner – who led the nation with 108 3-pointers a year ago – had made six bonus bombs in a single night.
    "That's something we work on every day in practice," Brunner said when asked about WLU's perimeter passing game. "We have a specific drill where we focus on making that extra pass to create the open shot and it really helped today."
    Taylor Johnson and Corinne Thomas rounded out the double-figure scorers for the Black and Gold with 14 and 11 points, respectively, as the hosts drained a season-high 16 3-point field goals.
    Brittany Stawovy finished with 13 points and Nicole Gilyard added a dozen to pace the Bobcats.
    The West Liberty women hit the Mountain East Conference road on Saturday for a 2 p.m. game at Davis & Elkins.