WEST LIBERTY, WV \u2013 The West Liberty University women\u2019s basketball team celebrated Senior Night with a 73-64 revenge win against West Virginia Wesleyan Monday night at the ASRC.<\/p>\n
The Hilltoppers (22-5, 17-4) clinched a top three seed in next week\u2019s West Virginia Conference tournament by draining 10 3-pointers in the final 18 minutes to hold the Bobcats (16-8, 13-7) at bay.<\/p>\n
It was the final regular-season home game for two of West Liberty\u2019s all-time greats and the senior duo of Tori Hansen and Laura Malernee came up big once again.<\/p>\n
Hansen, who set the school\u2019s career scoring record on Saturday, became the leading rebounder in Hilltopper history Monday night while Malernee knocked down five 3-point field goals to pad her NCAA record total.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know what I can say about those two girls that hasn\u2019t already been said,\u201d West Liberty coach Lynn Ullom told reporters. \u201cWe\u2019ve won a bunch of games with them and the individual numbers they\u2019ve put up over the years are just mind-boggling.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe best thing about them, though, is that they\u2019re both great students and good people who have done an outstanding job of carrying on the Hilltopper tradition of winning with quality basketball players who are quality people. We\u2019re all going to miss them a ton next year but there\u2019s still a lot of basketball left to be played this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
West Liberty never trailed after the midway point of the opening half and a buzzer-beating 3-pointer by Hansen gave the hosts a 36-27 halftime lead.<\/p>\n
The Bobcats battled back to forge ties at 45 and 48 before a Hansen free throw followed by a Jenni Robbins 3-pointer put the Hilltoppers ahead to stay, 52-48, with 11:14 remaining.<\/p>\n
Robbins, a sophomore guard, hit 5-of-6 3-pointers in the second half to help West Liberty pull away down the stretch. She finished with a team-high 21 points.<\/p>\n
Hansen and Malernee each added 15 points with Hansen pulling down 9 rebounds to fall one short of a double-double.<\/p>\n
Wesleyan\u2019s Jamie Kaufman had 24 points and 15 rebounds \u2013 both game-highs \u2013 while Lydia Bridenbaugh added 22 points in a losing cause.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were fortunate enough to shoot the ball well in the second half tonight,\u201d Ullom said, \u201cbut we\u2019re still not where we need to be defensively. Now we have a couple of days off to recharge our batteries and get ready for the stretch run.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Hilltoppers close out the regular season on Saturday with a 2 p.m. game at Davis & Elkins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WEST LIBERTY, WV \u2013 The West Liberty University women\u2019s basketball team celebrated Senior Night with a 73-64 revenge win against West Virginia Wesleyan Monday night at the ASRC. The Hilltoppers (22-5, 17-4) clinched a top three seed in next week\u2019s West Virginia Conference tournament by draining 10 3-pointers in the final 18 minutes to hold […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2840,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college"],"yoast_head":"\n