WHEELING, W.Va. (Feb. 8) – The Wheeling University men's basketball team led wire-to-wire in its 87-78 win over West Virginia State Saturday evening inside the McDonough Center.
 
The Cardinals improve to 9-7 in Mountain East Conference (MEC) play, 12-8 overall. Meanwhile, the Yellow Jackets fall to 15-6 overall, 10-6 in the league standings.
 
Junior guard Jordan Reid (Silver Spring, Md./Albert Einstein) led the way with 26 points on 9-of-11 shooting. Both junior guard Jarett Haines (Bronx, N.Y./New Rochelle) and freshman forward John Korte (Watertown, Mass./Watertown) posted 15 points, while senior center Jeremiah April (Phoenix, Ariz./Joy Christian) registered his first-career double-double as a Cardinal with 10 points and 11 rebounds.
 
Wheeling took a 15-5 lead six minutes into the game and eventually built its lead to 23-10 on consecutive fast-break layups by Reid, forcing a Yellow Jacket timeout with 11:58 left in the first half.
 
West Virginia State responded with a 13-3 run of its own to cut the lead to three, 26-23, with 5:40 remaining until halftime. The Cardinals locked down defensively and scored 11-unanswered points over the final five minutes of the period to take a 37-23 advantage into halftime.
 
The Yellow Jackets came out of the locker rooms with a 12-2 run to quickly erase the Wheeling lead and make the score 39-35 at the 15:50-mark. Consecutive treys by sophomore Bryce Foggin (Naples, Fla./Gulf Coast) and Korte rebuilt the lead back to 10, 45-35. The threes kicked off one of the best runs of the night for the Cardinals, who went on to build their largest lead of the night at 64-48 with 9:16 left in the game.
 
West Virginia State chipped away at the deficit over the next eight minutes and eventually got as close as five, 81-76, with 1:12 remaining on the clock. Wheeling put the game away by making all four of its attempts at the free-throw line in the final minute to secure the win.
 
The Cardinals ended the night shooting 30-of-56 (54 percent) from the field. West Virginia State posted a 30-of-75 (40 percent) showing shooting the ball.
 
Jeremiah Moore led the Yellow Jackets with a game-high 28 points in the loss.
 
The Cardinals will travel to Athens, West Virginia on Wednesday, February 12 for a MEC contest at Concord. The opening-tip is set for 7:30 p.m.