WEST LIBERTY, W.Va. --   

West Liberty University's men’s basketball team is going back to the Elite Eight.

       Coach Jim Crutchfield’s top-seeded Hilltoppers punched their ticket to the NCAA Division II championship tournament here Tuesday night with a thrilling, 89-78, victory against No. 7-ranked Shaw in a jam-packed ASRC.

            West Liberty (32-2), which advanced all the way to the national semifinals in Springfield, Mass. a year ago, will be heading to Northern Kentucky University in Highland Heights, Ky. for next week’s Elite Eight festivities. 

            The Hilltoppers will take on East Region champion Stonehill, Mass. (24-8) in one of four national quarterfinal games on Wednesday, March 21. Tipoff time will be announced later this week.

            “It’s great to be going back to the Elite Eight and I couldn’t be prouder of a group of young men,” Crutchfield said. “Shaw’s a great basketball team and I knew coming into tonight that we would have to play hard, play well and shoot the ball well in order to beat them. This was a terrific basketball game.”

            The up-tempo Hilltoppers built double-digit leads in each half but couldn’t put the tall and talented Bears (27-4) away until getting a little inspiration from the defensive end down the stretch.

            Keene Cockburn, a lanky 6-5 reserve who has seen increased playing time in the latter part of the season, turned the tide in the hosts’ favor for good – and brought the partisan crowd into the game in a big way – with a series of highlight-reel quality blocked shots in the waning minutes.

            “I think on one of those blocks, Keene went about 11 feet in the air to slap it away,” Crutchfield said. “I have no idea what that feels like but I do know the crowd went crazy and we came down and scored in transition.  We got another stop right after that – it might have been another block by Keene – and hit a 3-pointer. 

            “We had been trading baskets with them for a while but now we had gone from a 2-4 point lead to an 8-10 point advantage. That made it a different game.”

            One of West Liberty’s strengths throughout the season has been the ability to close out games in the waning minutes and that attribute was on full display Tuesday night.

            A steal and layup by Shaw standout Tony Smith cut the Hilltopper lead to 80-74 with just under 3 minutes left but after running nearly 30 seconds off the shot clock, Tim Hausfeld dropped in a pair of foul tosses to restore the 8-point advantage at 82-74.

            Malik Alvin hit a pair of free throws for the Bears to make it 82-76 with 2:20 remaining but West Liberty once more ran the shot clock down into single digits before All-Region guard Alex Falk curled to the hoop for a layup, restoring the 8-point lead, 84-76, with 1:50 to play.

            Shaw’s Curtis Hines drove to the rack at the other end only to see Cockburn swoop in and swat the shot away for his 6th block of the night.

            Falk was fouled after tracking down the rejection and made his first free throw with 1:31 remaining for an 85-76 lead. The junior guard missed the second charity toss but Hausfeld – the smallest man on the court – darted in to grab the rebound and brought the ball back out to run some more clock.

            Shaw gambled on playing defense for one more possession and the plan backfired when Hausfeld looped a skip pass over to a wide-open Falk, who drained a dagger of a 3-pointer to put the game on ice, 88-76, with less than a minute to play.

            “I can’t say enough about how my teammates picked me up,” said Falk, who was held scoreless in the first half but scored all 14 of his points in the final 15 minutes. “That’s the way it’s been with our team all season. Someone has always stepped up.”

            Cedric Harris was one of those players who stepped up in a big way. The All-WVIAC point guard led the Hilltoppers with 26 points while also handing out a game-high 8 assists.

            “Coach Crutchfield told me before the game to find the seams and shoot the gaps in their defense,” Harris said. “I just tried to take what they gave me and my teammates really came through. Everybody played great tonight.”

            Hausfeld joined Falk and Harris in double-figures with 13 points while freshman C.J. Hester turned in another clutch performance, posting his second straight double-double with 16 points and 10 rebounds – including a 4-of-7 showing from behind the 3-point arc.