Photo by Kyle Lutz Wheeling’s Khira Burton attempts a shot for while Glenville State’s Zakiyah Winfield defends during Saturday’s game.

WHEELING — When a team plays Glenville State in women’s basketball, it’s certainly hard to keep up its style of play. After all, the Pioneers are averaging more than 108 points per game.

For Wheeling, it wasn’t exactly hard for it to drive to the basket. It was more of finishing the play as the Cardinals missed a plethora of layups and point blank shots and were not able to overcome the dynamic offense of the Pioneers in a 121-89 setback Saturday afternoon at the McDonough Center.

“A dozen, 12-15 layups. We were right there. We wanted to be three possessions, plus or minus at half,” Wheeling coach Mike Llanas said. “And we didn’t do that. We were down by 19 at half. I guess in any other game that’s a disappointment. We had a lot of teaching points. I told them at the end of the game, you missed 13 layups. Cut that in half and we shot 48 percent. We shot 48 percent from the field and we missed about 14 layups. That’s amazing.”

Down by 12 at the end of the first quarter (32-20), the Cardinals (12-10, 9-9 MEC) were able to get the deficit within single digits after Lilly Ritz supplied a basket that put the score at 35-27 with 8:24 left in the first half.

Ritz, who was named U.S. Basketball Writers Association Division II National Player of the Week this past week, was a force again for the Cardinals as he tallied a team-high 30 points while also grabbing 11 rebounds to garner another double-double.

The Pioneers (20-4, 15-3 MEC), though, put together a small spurt as it scored seven unanswered points over the next minute. Glenville also ended the quarter on a 10-2 run to put the score at 56-37 at intermission.

“With where we were voted in the preseason and where we’ve come, we’re getting better,” Llanas said. “We just have to get over the hump psychologically. We as a program have to be able to handle that sort of style of play.”

After a Taliah Cashwell bucket to start the third quarter, the Pioneers reeled off three straight baskets including a Re’Shawna Stone 3-pointer to put their lead over 20 points as the score read 63-39. The Cardinals remained in that hole up until the beginning of the fourth when they scored seven of the first eight points. Khira Burton had five of those points. Her final bucket put the score at 76-68 with nine minutes remaining.

In the final five minutes, the Pioneers put together one final run, a 17-4 over a span of three minutes to close the game out and broke the 100-point barrier for the 16th time this season.

The Pioneers will face off against West Virginia Wesleyan on Wednesday, while Wheeling has a huge matchup against Fairmont State at home.

“That’s a big game. We were down by 22 or 24 at their place,” Llanas said. “And we come back and we were down by three with a minute to go on the road. We have to play well on Wednesday. It’s a must-win game on Wednesday.”

Five Pioneers scored in double figures as Stone tallied 30 points while Emily Stoller netted 21. Zakiyah Winfield was solid with 19 points, Ty Armstrong secured 15 and Taychaun Hubbard had 11.

For the Cardinals, Burton had 21 points and Cashwell had 20.