INSTITUTE, W.VA. – After registering a stellar 70 points in the first half, West Virginia State Women's Basketball dominated Saturday in the Walker Convocation Center, downing Mountain East Conference foe Wheeling 114-75.
114 points ties for the fourth-highest scoring contest in program history and marks the 13th 100-point or more game for Head Coach Charles Marshall since taking over the helm at WVSU in 2016-17.
The Yellow Jackets improve to 15-5 on the year and 11-4 in MEC play, while Wheeling slips to 5-15 and 5-11 in the league.
Junior Alexis Hall was one of five double-digit scorers for State, putting up a season-best 21 points, falling just three shy of her career-high 24. Hall also tallied five rebounds.
Classmate Destiny Fields was next with 14 points, followed by fellow junior Shelby Harmeyer and senior Charity Shears, who recorded 13 points apiece. Sophomore Caroline Scott added 11, a season-best, and she and Harmeyer each tallied seven boards. Junior Erin Whitehead led the way on the defense front with nine rebounds.
The Yellow Jackets exploded in the first quarter, going out to a 10-point advantage at 18-8 with just under six minutes left. State was impressive from the arc, as back-to-back treys from Shears and Harmeyer opened the contest. Fields also broke into the three-point action, pushing State to a 10-point lead at 18-8 with just under six minutes remaining.
Junior Hannah Shriver then put up a trey, bringing WVSU's cushion to an 11-point lead at 25-14 with 3:47 on the clock. Payton Shears pushed State to a 32-18 clip after sinking her own three, and a jumper followed by a free throw from Fields rounded out the quarter with WVSU holding an impressive 39-25 lead. She hauled in 12 points during the frame.
39 was the most points scored by the Yellow Jackets in a quarter since at least the 2015-16 season. It was also the third time State has registered 30 points or more in the opening frame this year. The squad edged out their previous record of 37 in the first quarter against Slippery Rock in mid-November, and also posted 31 points in the first quarter against Alderson Broaddus in January.
WVSU continued to dominate the contest, putting up a 24-point lead in the second quarter at 61-37 as part of an 8-0 run lasting just over a minute that featured four different Yellow Jacket scorers.
Five points from Hall in the final two minutes of half pushed State to the 70-point mark, their highest halftime score since January 18, 2020, when the Yellow Jackets registered 69 points in the first half against Urbana. State went on to win that contest 115-80.
The Yellow Jackets scoring simmered just a bit entering the second half, but State still logged 20 points in the third quarter, paced by a 13-4 scoring run in the final two minutes of the frame. Hall put up another five points in the sequence.
Heading into the fourth quarter with a 91-64 lead, Hall picked things up right where she left off, going for a layup to build State's cushion to 29 points at 93-64 and was the Yellow Jackets only scorer in the fourth quarter for nearly the first five minutes.
A layup from senior Kalia Cunningham with 5:17 on the clock sent State right below the 100-point threshold at 99-68.
Scott took a shot from the charity stripe to bring the Yellow Jackets to 100, and then followed that up with a steal and lay-in to put WVSU ahead by a commanding 30 points at 104-74. Scott repeated the sequence with a minute remaining to lift the Yellow Jackets ahead 111-74, and a trey from Hall with 11 seconds remaining sealed the victory for State at 114-75.
UP NEXT
The Yellow Jackets remains at home, welcoming Davis & Elkins for a Wednesday tip at 5:30 p.m. Live stats and streaming will be provided. The Yellow Jackets edged out the Senators at the end of January, 68-65 in Elkins in their first meeting this season.
