The University of Charleston women's basketball team was able to pull away in the second half to advance to the Mountain East Conference tournament quarterfinals with an 82-55 victory over West Liberty on Wednesday afternoon at the Civic Center.
The ninth-seeded Hilltoppers (9-20) were able to find a spark with a 9-0 run to make it a two-point game late in the third quarter, but the No. 8 Golden Eagles bounced right back by extending the lead back out to 11 points by the end of the quarter and then never looked back the rest of the way to cruise to the victory and earn the chance to face top-seeded Glenville State in the quarterfinals at 6 p.m. Thursday.
"Our team played extremely hard and together and had fun with each other today," Charleston coach Adam Collins said. "That's a key for us. All year long, it's shown that when we can do that we win games and we've won by a decent margin."
Charleston (11-18) allowed West Liberty to make just 29.6 percent of its shots in the second half, limiting a team that makes close to 10 3-pointers per game to hit just 2 of the 14 it attempted in the final two quarters.
Jordyn Peck and Abby Watson led the way for the Golden Eagles, scoring 22 points apiece, while freshman Anna Hayton came off the bench to record a double-double with 13 points and 14 rebounds. UC shot 51.7 percent for the game, turning in an extremely efficient performance in the second half by scoring on 23 of its 37 possessions to close out the game.
"We've been focusing on making shots and we had to get back to our roots and just get in the gym," Peck said. "In order to win, we know we have to play defense, but we needed to be focused today on taking good shots and making the extra pass to get open looks. We did a great job of sharing the ball today."
The game opened a little closer than the final score indicated. The first quarter saw the two teams both catching fire early, with West Liberty using a late run to take a lead.
But that was when the Golden Eagles began to turn up the pressure and seize momentum. Charleston outscored West Liberty 11-5 in the second quarter to head into the half with the lead - allowing the Hilltoppers to make just 2 of their 14 shots they took and missing all 10 tries from beyond the 3-point arc.
"We tried to make it interesting there briefly [in the third quarter]," West Liberty coach Lynn Ullom said. "Give credit to Charleston because they were more prepared today and they were the better team. Even when it was 23-22 at the end of the first quarter, we never had a feel like this was going to turn out.
"It was like running a marathon uphill, we never got in a rhythm."
It didn't take long for Charleston to turn that close game in the first half into a comfortable victory. The Golden Eagles were able to use that defensive momentum to earn some better looks offensively - scoring 44 points in the paint while also turning 15 West Liberty turnovers into 20 points on the other end.
"We can shoot it, we have some girls who can make them, but we're not a prolific 3-point-shooting team, and the times when things have gone bad for us it's been when we've settled for those," Collins said. "Today we took 18 [3-pointers] and we really attacked the rim and took a lot of inside shots.
"These are great girls - we have a nice group here - and we're not done yet."
West Liberty's McKenna Shives, who entered the game leading the nation in 3-pointers per game, went just 1 for 13 from beyond the arc in the game and finished with just seven points for the Hilltoppers. WLU was led by Brandi Beader and Grace Fodor, who both scored 14 points.
Contact Michael Carvelli at 304-348-4810 or michael.carvelli@wvgazettemail.com. Follow him on Twitter @carvelli3.