Article from Hilltoppersports.com
WEST LIBERTY, W.Va. – The high-flying West Liberty University men’s basketball team placed nine players in double-figures Monday night while racing away to a 139-63 victory against an overmatched Salem International squad at the ASRC.
Coach Jim Crutchfield’s Hilltoppers (15-1, 11-1) never trailed in stretching their season-long winning streak to 10 games.
John Wolosinczuk’s 23 points paced a balanced West Liberty attack on a night that saw the Hilltopper reserves log nearly as many minutes as the starters.
“The way I look at it,” said Crutchfield, whose team is averaging 113.7 ppg. during the 10-game win streak, “it’s not about starters and backups. We dress 10 guys and every one of them can play.
“Tonight’s game was a great opportunity for the guys who don’t usually get a lot of minutes to log some significant playing time and they made the most of it.”
The Tigers (1-17, 1-11) ran with the Hilltoppers in the early going, trailing just 19-15 as the clock ticked past the 14-minute mark of the opening half.
They spent the next 34 minutes running after them.
But a 3-pointer by Scott Mirich lit the fuse on a 21-3 West Liberty spurt that broke the game wide open in a span of less than 3 minutes.
When Mike Mathey’s jumped capped the run with 11:24 on the clock, the Hilltoppers had raced out to a 40-18 lead and had nailed the gas pedal to the floorboards.
West Liberty pushed the margin to 74-41 at the half and then put the game on ice with a blistering 19-of-26 (.731) shooting performance in the second half – including a 12-of-16 (.750) showing from behind the 3-point stripe.
Despite the whopping offensive numbers, it was the Hilltopper defense which keyed the blowout. West Liberty came up with 26 steals – 20 in the first half alone – and forced the visitors into 36 turnovers.
“We were able to pull the press off pretty early,” Crutchfield said, “but I thought we still played very good defense in the half-court all night.
“We created a lot of offense with our defense (53 points off turnovers) but when we didn’t have the numbers, we shared the ball very well and got a lot of good looks out of our sets. This was a good win.”
Freshman Alex Falk had a huge night off the bench with 21 points, 8 assists, 6 rebounds and 6 steals – all career-highs. Mathey added 18 points while Barry Shetzer and Jordan Fortney had 15 each. Mirich weighed in with 14 points while Corey Pelle, Tim Hausfeld and Chris Morrow all had 10 points.
Demetrick Walker led Salem International with 15 points.
West Liberty’s win sets up a Thursday night showdown between the hottest teams in the WVIAC. Alderson-Broaddus (15-2, 11-1), which has won 15 straight since opening the year with back-to-back losses, and the Hilltoppers tip off at 7:30 p.m.
“Alderson-Broaddus is just playing incredible basketball right now,” Crutchfield said. “They’re really on a roll and this is a huge game for both teams. We’ll enjoy tonight’s win for a few more minutes and then turn our full attention to A-B.
