WEST LIBERTY, W.Va. – The West Liberty University men's basketball team rolled to its eighth straight win here Wednesday night, blasting Urbana, 99-70, before a sizable crowd at the ASRC.
    Coach Ben Howlett's Hilltoppers (14-3, 9-2) took control midway through the first half by holding the Blue Knights (4-13, 3-8) to just 2 points over a 6 ½-minute span.
    West Liberty outscored Urbana, 14-2, over that stretch to open up a 33-20 lead and pulled away to a 50-29 halftime advantage. That was as close as the visitors would come as the Hilltoppers led by as many as 31 points in the second half.
    Since a December loss to No. 21-ranked Charleston, the Black and Gold have reeled off eight straight wins, averaging 110.3 ppg. and outscoring their opponents by an average of 34 points a night.
    Even so, Howlett wasn't inclined to put Wednesday's win on his personal highlight reel.
    "To be honest, I thought today was kind of a struggle for us offensively and defensively," Howlett said. "We had 50 points in the first half but with only 5 assists, we had to make a lot of really tough shots.
    "We have a lot of talented guys who are capable of making those shots but that's not what I want. I want the easy shots that come with good spacing, moving without the ball, crisp passing and we didn't have enough of that tonight."
    Sophomore guard Will Yoakum helped ignite West Liberty's fast start with 17 of his game-high 22 points coming in the first half. Junior All-American Dalton Bolon picked up the 11th double-double of his career with 16 points and a career-high 15 rebounds while freshman Bryce Butler notched his first career double-double with 14 points and 10 boards.
    Rapidly closing in on 1,500 points for his career, the 6-4 Bolon has emerged as one of the top five rebounders in the Mountain East Conference at 8.1 rebounds a game.
    "Just crashing the glass," he replied to a question. "We're kind of a small team so we have to gang-rebound. The ball has just been bouncing my way."
    Pat Robinson III added a dozen points and 6 rebounds while Preston Boswell had 12 points, 4 rebounds and 4 assists.
    The Hilltoppers shot 50 percent from the floor (37-of-74) and 85 percent (17-of-20) from the charity stripe while forcing 17 turnovers and posting a huge 52-33 advantage off the glass.
    Mario Lacy and Tehree Horn paced Urbana with 17 and 13 points, respectively, as West Liberty remained tied with Charleston for the MEC lead.
    "This is the time of year when teams find out how good they really are," Howlett said. "We're a little different in that we don't specifically game plan from game to game. We just focus on doing what we do as well as we can do it.
    "We know if we go out and play hard, we'll win a lot of basketball games. We also know that if we take our foot off the gas, we'll pay the price. We'll enjoy this win tonight and get back to work tomorrow preparing for a big game at Wheeling on Sunday."
    The Ohio County rivals lock horns Sunday at 4 p.m. inside the McDonough Center.