WEST LIBERTY \u2013 A\u00a0 pair of West Liberty\u2019s unsung heroes played a string music lullaby for\u00a0 Ohio County rival Wheeling Jesuit Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n
Tim Hausfeld poured in 32\u00a0 points off the bench and fellow sophomore Alex Falk added 29 more on\u00a0 12-of-14 shooting as the unbeaten and No. 1-ranked Hilltoppers delighted\u00a0 the largest crowd in the history of the ASRC with a 109-94 victory\u00a0 against the Cardinals.<\/p>\n
Falk came into the\u00a0 game averaging just 11.6 ppg. while Hausfeld was scoring at a mere 9.3\u00a0 ppg. clip as part of the rotation but head coach Jim Crutchfield wasn\u2019t\u00a0 the least bit surprised by their mutual offensive explosion.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not a major\u00a0 shock to any of us,\u201d Crutchfield said. \u201cTimmy shoots the ball like that\u00a0 in practice every day and you could see he was gaining more confidence\u00a0 with every game. Alex is just a master of moving without the ball and\u00a0 creating open looks for himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur system is\u00a0 designed to get the ball to the open man. The other guys did a great job\u00a0 of finding Timmy and Alex and they took care of the rest.\u201d<\/p>\n
West Liberty (20-0, 16-0)\u00a0 kept the standing-room-only crowd on its feet for much of the opening\u00a0 half, leading by as many as 23 points en route to a 61-43 halftime lead.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn all honesty, we\u00a0 just had a stretch in the first half where we played really well and\u00a0 shot the ball really well,\u201d Crutchfield said. \u201cWe were making just about\u00a0 everything we threw up while Wheeling was missing some good\u00a0 opportunities. I knew they\u2019d make a run in the second half because\u00a0 they\u2019re too good a team to just keep missing like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Cardinals were\u00a0 able to whittle away at the deficit and ultimately cut the lead to\u00a0 single digits, 74-66, on a post move by Obi Ukwuoma with 11:24\u00a0 remaining.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s when the 5-7 Hausfeld came up big.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0 diminutive backcourter knifed into the paint for a stop-and-pop\u00a0 \u00a010-footer with just over 11 minutes remaining and followed that up with\u00a0 a deep 3-pointer for a 79-66 lead with 10:39 on the clock.<\/p>\n
Hausfeld went on to\u00a0 score 15 of his game-high 32 points in the last 11 minutes and Wheeling\u00a0 Jesuit never got the lead back under double-figures the rest of the way.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe tell Tim he\u2019s\u00a0 allowed to scoot up a little closer to the line,\u201d Crutchfield said, \u201cbut\u00a0 he literally has unlimited range. He makes them from 7-8 feet behind\u00a0 the arc all the time in practice. If he gets a clean look, that\u2019s a good\u00a0 shot for him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hausfeld and Falk led\u00a0 five double-figure scorers for the hosts. Barry Shetzer scored 15 points\u00a0 before fouling out down the stretch while Jordan Fortney added 14 and\u00a0 Corey Pelle chipped in with 11. Pelle and Shetzer also weighed in with 7\u00a0 assists as the Hilltoppers shot 60 percent (40-of-67) from the floor.<\/p>\n
Ben Siefert led\u00a0 Wheeling Jesuit (11-8, 8-8) with 28 points, 5 assists and 5 steals while\u00a0 Steve Catich and Ukwuoma scored 18 and 14 points, respectively.<\/p>\n
The victory clinched\u00a0 West Liberty\u2019s seventh consecutive 20-win season under Crutchfield. The\u00a0 Hilltoppers had only two 20-win seasons in the seven decades before\u00a0 Crutchfield\u2019s arrival.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re trying like\u00a0 heck to enjoy what\u2019s going on with the program,\u201d Crutchfield said, \u201cbut\u00a0 it\u2019s a little hard to do when you\u2019re going from one game right into\u00a0 another. I\u2019m sure when the season is over, we\u2019ll have a chance to catch\u00a0 our breath and look back at what we\u2019ve done but right now there\u2019s an\u00a0 awful lot of basketball left to be played.\u201d<\/p>\n
West Liberty hits the road Monday night with a 7:30 p.m. tipoff against Ohio Valley University in Vienna, W.Va.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WEST LIBERTY \u2013 A\u00a0 pair of West Liberty\u2019s unsung heroes played a string music lullaby for\u00a0 Ohio County rival Wheeling Jesuit Saturday afternoon. Tim Hausfeld poured in 32\u00a0 points off the bench and fellow sophomore Alex Falk added 29 more on\u00a0 12-of-14 shooting as the unbeaten and No. 1-ranked Hilltoppers delighted\u00a0 the largest crowd in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-college"],"yoast_head":"\n