Cullowhee, N.C. – Vonterius Woolbright captured his NCAA-leading third triple-double of the season on Saturday afternoon, pacing four in double figures as the Catamounts used tenacious defense and an overall complete team effort to cruise past Mercer 79-46 in Southern Conference men's basketball action on Ingles Court at the Ramsey Center.
 
Woolbright finished with a team-high tying 16 points while pulling down 10 rebounds and handing out 10 assists to complete his third triple-dip of the season, doing so in just under 30 minutes of on-court action. It was Woolbright's second triple-double at home this season (vs. VMI and Mercer) – and also his second coming on regional television in the Ingles SoCon Game of the Week (at ETSU, vs. Mercer). The Albany, Ga., product now has a school-record four triple-doubles in his three years wearing the Purple & Gold.
 
Classmate Tre Jackson matched Woolbright with 16 points as the SoCon's leading 3-point shooter sank 4-of-6 from range. Playing against his former team, graduate transfer guard Kamar Robertson came off the bench to score 15 points while Bernard Pelote played big in the post, scoring a dozen while just missing a double-double with eight rebounds. Charles Lampten added eight rebounds in the winning effort, five coming on the offensive glass.
 
Combined, all nine Catamounts that played on Saturday scored as WCU secured its 18th seasonal win by improving to 18-7 – matching its win total from last season – and advancing to 7-5 in SoCon play.
 
Mercer (11-14, 4-8 SoCon) was led by David Thomas with a game-high 18 points, the lone Bear in double figures on Saturday afternoon. Team leading scorer Jalyn McCreary, who had averaged 29 points over his previous two games, was held to just six points on 3-of-11 shooting with three rebounds, hindered early by foul trouble. Caleb Hunter finished with seven points and one of the Bears' two 3-pointers.
 
Saturday's loss snapped a two-game seasonal win streak for Mercer which had won three of its last four entering the game. The Catamounts won their fourth straight in the head-to-head series, matching their longest series winning streak.
 
Western Carolina held its second opponent below the 50-point threshold this season by limiting Mercer to an opponent-low 46 points (Brescia, 47). It's the second consecutive year that WCU stymied the Bears in Cullowhee as the Catamounts held Mercer to 45 points in last year's meeting on Ingles Court in the Ramsey Center, winning 73-45. On Saturday, the Catamounts only trailed for a combined 41 seconds.
 
Deadlocked at four after the first media timeout, Western Carolina scored the game's next 13 points as a part of an 18-to-2 run to grab a 16-point lead, 22-6, midway through the first half. Mercer closed to within 10 points twice the remainder of the opening stanza but was unable to return the deficit to single digits. The Catamounts scored eight of the final 12 points of the opening 20 minutes with Hunter burying a jumper at the halftime horn to provide the halftime score, 33-19.
 
The Catamounts limited Mercer to just 27 percent shooting in the first half which included 0-for-8 from behind the 3-point arc as the Bears failed to hit the 20-point plateau.
 
Lampten converted a 3-point play on the opening possession of the second half to spark a 9-0 spurt by the Catamounts that featured 3-pointers by Russell Jones Jr. on consecutive possessions to extend the lead to 23, prompting an early timeout by the Bears. The first triple by Jones Jr., who finished with eight points, handed the home squad its first 20-point lead and the margin never dipped below that threshold for the remainder of the game.
 
All told, the Catamounts outscored Mercer 31-to-7 over the first 10 minutes of the second half, taking a game-high 39-point lead – 67-28 – on a Jackson 3-pointer with 8:25 remaining in regulation. The Bears finished things off by outscoring the Catamounts 18-12 over the final eight and a half minutes.
 
Just for reference, Mercer finished the game with 46 points in 40 minutes. The Catamounts scored 46 in the second half alone in dominating Saturday's game.
 
One of the SoCon's top defensive teams statistically this season in both points per game and field goal percentage, WCU held Mercer to an opponent season-low 28.6 percent (18-of-63) shooting. It's the lowest shooting percentage by the opposition since Dec. 20, 2022, when WCU limited Toccoa Falls to  24.3 percent – and the lowest by an NCAA Division I opponent since holding Appalachian State to 26.5 percent (13-of-49) in a 58-53 win in Boone on Dec. 3, 2016.
 
Western Carolina hits the road in the midweek for a showdown with league-leading Samford (22-3, 11-1 SoCon) who throttled VMI in Lexington, Va., on Saturday, 102-63, to set its program record for wins in a single-season. Wednesday's game is slated to be broadcast nationally on ESPNU with a simulcast stream on ESPN+ (paid subscription required), with streaming audio from the Catamount Sports Network and live stats available online at CatamountSports.com. Fans locally can also listen to the game on 105.7 FM / 540 AM WRGC "The River" in Sylva (www.wrgc.com).

WCU returns home next Saturday in the front of a Catamount hoops double-header, hosting ETSU at 4 p.m. for a "Beat the Bucs – Black Out!" in the Ramsey Center.
 
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