WHEELING, W.Va. – On Friday afternoon, Notre Dame College used 60-percent shooting with 22 assists and eight steals to grab an all-encompassing, "good team win" against West Virginia State University by a score of 98-77. The win was the program's first victory in the Mountain East Conference Tournament since 2016.

Notre Dame showed the energy and ability to clean the offensive glass in the opening minute, when junior Bruce Hodges III and redshirt-junior Drew Scarberry each grabbed an offensive rebound following two missed threes. That led to a layup by Hodges. On the defensive end, junior Larenz Thurman stole the ball and found Scarberry running down the court for a layup.

"If you can get a couple easy ones right off the bat, it kind of gets you settled down and calms the nerves a little bit, so that helps on a big stage," Scarberry said. "It becomes a lot easier to get in the flow of the game."

West Virginia State did comeback to take a 5-4 lead, and then Notre Dame used a 10-3 run to push their lead to 14-8 with 14:59 remaining in the first stanza. That was the first of many runs that NDC would contend with, and they were able to stifle them all.

"That's something we stressed all year. We knew that they were going to go on a run eventually," Will Vorhees mentioned. "This is a good league, teams have good players and they're going to make shots. We've got to withstand it, make shots and match their runs with a run of ours and that's how you build up a lead."

Following the under-10 minute media timeout, the Falcons put together a 9-2 run in under two minutes. Form the 9:52-mark to the 8:02-mark, NDC made four shots, stole the ball once and held the Yellow Jackets to two shots.

A 15-5 run for the Falcons, which was capped by a long jumper by redshirt-senior Will Vorhees, gave Notre Dame a 42-23 lead with 3:28 remaining before halftime. That represented their largest lead of the first half.

Not long after the Vorhees bucket, however, West Virginia State tried to reel the Falcons back in with a 10-5 run in the final three minutes of the first half. However, NDC still led by 14 points, 47-33, at the intermission.

After one half of play, on the WVSU side, Ernest Jenkins led the way with nine points. Vorhees had 15 points, on 70-percent shooting, while Scarberry added 10 for NDC. Ball movement was working for NDC in the first half, as 12 of their 19 baskets were assisted.

"I was happy, along with the ball movement and finding the open guy, we got to the glass pretty well," said head coach Tim Koenig. "Had a lot of second chance shots. Moving that thing, gave us more energy and if we did miss it, guys got to the glass pretty well."

"When they collapsed down, I won't hesitate find the open guy," Vorhees stated. "I felt, as a team they did that well tonight. Guys are going to knock down shots when they're open. It was working so we kept going to it."

West Virginia State had the momentum after the half, and turned the aforementioned 10-5 run into 16-7 outburst, closing the gap to ten points, 49-39. And five minutes later, after falling behind by 20, the Yellow Jackets put together a 14-5 run, with the help of four three pointers. That run made the score 72-61, with 11:20 remaining in the game.

But, like Vorhees said after the game, the Falcons had to withstand it and match it with a run of their own. A 13-6 response run gave Notre Dame an 18-point advantage with 6:11 remaining in the game. During the run, Hodges scored or assisted on nine points and had a steal.

The rest of the way, NDC's lead never decreased under 15 points. Notre Dame won by 21 points, 98-77.

The Falcons shot the ball at 67-percent from the field in the final 20 minutes of play. Incredibly, with 4:26 remaining in the second stanza, the Falcons were shooting 75-percent (18-for-24). They finished with 50 points in the paint and 17 points off turnovers.

"A really good win against a good team." Koenig said. "They've got a lot of athletes and their press hurt us that second game at their place. Anytime you can win in the tournament, it's a big time win. We're very happy. We'll rest up, we'll enjoy it for a little bit and then we've got our work cut out for us tomorrow, but we're looking forward to it."

"I thought it was a good team win," Vorhees said. "The defense is obviously set up to try to guard us the best they can and I trust my teammates to make the play when they send the doubles my way. In transition, we were getting pretty much any shots that we wanted when we pushed it and guys did a good job of finishing."

Vorhees finished the game with 23 points, on 65-percent shooting and 11 rebounds. He took over the top spot in program history with the most points in one season (803) and has made the most field goals in a season in NDC history (309). On top of that, Vorhees is the third player in MEC history to score 800 points in a season.

All five starters scored in double-digits for the Falcons. Freshman Isaiah Sanders had 22 points and eight rebounds, while Hodges scored 15 points, on 70-percent shooting, and added six rebounds and six assists. Scarberry connected on four three pointers.

For West Virginia State, Jenkins finished with 19 points and Isaiah Noel scored 14 of his 16 points in the second half. The Yellow Jackets shot 43-percent.

Notre Dame will play No. 2 seed Fairmont State in a semifinal matchup on March 9. Tip-off is scheduled for 8:15 p.m.