West Virginia State was able to pull away late to pick up a 91-75 afternoon victory over Washington Adventist to close out nonconference play on Monday at the Walker Convocation Center.
Led by a hot-shooting performance and a stingy effort defensively that kept the Shock from completing their comeback bid in the second half, the Yellow Jackets were able to pick up the victory to get back to the .500 mark for the season.
"I thought we had a nice game," West Virginia State coach Bryan Poore said. "We made a lot of timely shots and did some really good things down the stretch to put it away. We're still learning how to close out games and we let them hang around for a little bit, but we stretched it back out and did what we had to do."
West Virginia State (5-5) was able to jump out to a lead in the first half by wreaking havoc defensively and using turnovers to get out into the open floor and turn those WAU miscues into points on the other end of the floor.
The Shock (12-2) turned the ball over 10 times in the first 20 minutes, with the Yellow Jackets converting those into 20 points, including 17 fast-break points. Getting out to that kind of start was something that Poore had stressed a lot with his team prior to the start of the game, especially against a Washington Adventist team that came into the contest with just one loss on the season and was nationally ranked at the NAIA Division II level.
"More often than not, the team that gets out to a good start and gets confidence going early is going to have a nice chance to win," Poore said. "We came out in a zone early because we wanted to limit what they did and not let them get easy looks early so they couldn't gain that confidence.
"We were able to get aggressive with them and get some turnovers and that all helped get our momentum going like it needed to."
Once they got their lead in the first half, an advantage that was as large as 11 points in the opening 20 minutes of play, the Yellow Jackets had a few chances to continue to extend the advantage and put the game away before showing their age a bit.
The young WVSU team had some tough stretches in the second half that allowed the Shock to make its way back into the game. But it seemed like for every run that WAU would make, the Yellow Jackets had another one in them right after that helped build the lead back up. Defensively, they didn't force a turnover for the first 10 minutes of the second half, but were able to come up with the stops and make the plays down the stretch that they needed to make in order to lead by as many as 16 points late in the game.
A big part of State being able to hold on was the stellar play of Ernest Jenkins. The freshman guard missed the Yellow Jackets' loss to Davis & Elkins due to a death in the family, but made his return with a 25-point outburst and four assists.
"Ernest had really great control of the game," Poore said. "His basketball IQ and court savvy really helps us a lot. He's done a nice job of playing his role and helping to lead this team and there are still some things that we're working on. We have to keep harping on them to clean that stuff up, but this was a good step in the right direction for us."
West Virginia State shot 54 percent from the floor, including a 9-of-19 performance on 3-point shots. Jayson Hankins joined Jenkins in double figures with his third double-double of the season, scoring 16 points and pulling down 11 rebounds. Brent Bauer also scored 16 while handing out seven assists and Mohammed Camara added 10 points off the bench.
Senior big man Brian Bridgeforth led WAU with 17 points and 12 rebounds. Charles Vines also had 17 for the Shock, while Elliot Meredith and Tyrus Fleetwood added 15 and 12 points, respectively.
Contact Michael Carvelli at 304-348-4810 or michael.carvelli@wvgazettemail.com. Follow him on Twitter @carvelli3.