WHEELING, W.Va. – The No. 20-ranked West Liberty University men's basketball team won its ninth straight game and clinched an outright Mountain East Conference North Division championship here Saturday with a 107-88 victory against Wheeling inside the McDonough Center.
    Coach Ben Howlett's Hilltoppers (13-3) shot better than 50 percent from the floor in each half to complete another season sweep of their Ohio County rivals.
    The teams traded leads for most of the opening half.
    A Jarrett Haines jumper forged the final tie of the afternoon, 37-37, as the first half clock ticked past the 4-minute mark but Marlon Moore answered with a drive to the basket and followed up with a 3-point bomb for a 42-37 WLU lead just 30 seconds later.
    West Liberty went on to take a 50-43 lead into the locker room at intermission and the 1-2 scoring punch of Pat Robinson and Dalton Bolon took care of things from there.
    Bolon scored 19 of his team-high 24 points in the second half while Robinson knocked down 14 of his 23 tallies during the same period as the Hilltoppers slowly pulled away.
    Freshman Zach Rasile nailed four 3-pointers and finished with 14 points while Malik McKinney hit double figures again with 13 points.
    Luke Dyer and Bryce Butler rounded out the double figure scorers with 10 points each while Moore just missed a double-double with 9 points and 10 rebounds.
    Jarrett Haines tossed in a game-high 28 points to pace the hosts, who also got 17 points from John Korte and 14 each from Jordan Reid and Brent Price.
    As the MEC's North Division champion, West Liberty will play in Friday's 2 p.m. MEC Tournament quarterfinal at WesBanco Arena against the winner of Monday night's first-round game between No. 4 seed Concord and No. 5 seed Davis & Elkins.
    Complete MEC Tournament pairings and game times will be announced later tonight.