WEST LIBERTY — After a thrilling victory in its opener, West Liberty had no time to rest as reigning Mountain East Conference Champion and No. 4 ranked Notre Dame College paid a visit to West Family Stadium. The Hilltoppers were holding their own against their nationally-ranked foe, but inconsistencies on both sides of the ball was a factor as the Falcons ran away with a 43-24 victory Thursday night.

“It was kind of a tale of two halves and unfortunately, we never played well together as a team,” West Liberty coach Roger Waialae said. “I thought our defense, we put their backs to the wall the first half. Offensively, we didn’t get much going and I thought in the second half, we started to play a little better offensively and defensively we had some letdowns. We had opportunities early in the game to make some plays and whether it was a ball overthrown or a missed block when we had somebody wide open, it’s a combination of things offensively. Again, defensively, in the first half, we played well. We were getting to the football, they were somewhat frustrated. I’m proud of my team. A couple of plays go our way, and I’m not going to tell you is going to win the game, but it would have made it interesting in the first half if we would have connected on a couple of things.”

After West Liberty kicked a field goal on its opening drive, Notre Dame scored 22 unanswered points thanks to three rushing touchdowns.

D.J. Greene found the end zone twice thanks to a short field (27, 12 yards) on both scoring drives followed by a Jaleel McLaughlin 70-yard scamper, the Falcons (2-0) took a 22-3 lead with 7:47 left in the first half.

McLaughlin finished with a game-high 258 yards and three scores on 31 carries.

However, the West Liberty (1-1) defense gave the Hilltoppers a a little spark late in the second quarter with a strip sack fumble that was recovered on the Notre Dame 19.

Quarterback Zach Phillips connected with Isaiah Robinson for a 15-yard gain to get to the 4-yard-line. Two plays later, Phillips found Thomas Cole for a 2-yard touchdown.

The Hilltoppers cut the lead even more in the third. A 14-play, 62-yard drive was capped by a Quincy Wimbish score from 3 yards out that put the score at 22-17 with 4:23 remaining in the quarter.

“We do have a good football team,” Waialae said. “I got to get my players to believe that, and to believe in each other and trust each other. That’s my job as a head coach because we do have players that can play. We didn’t back down and gave them a fight. Their coach (Mike Jacobs) probably said it best to me. He goes, ‘If you make a couple of plays down the field, it’s a different ballgame.’ When you have opportunities against a team like that, you can’t blow them.”

Unfortunately, for the Hilltoppers, the Falcons had a solid drive of their own. A nine-play, 47 yard drive took the remaining minutes off the clock in the third and McLaughlin scored on the first play of the fourth quarter to give Notre Dame some breathing room, 29-17.

Notre Dame was right back at it on its next drive as McLaughlin found the end zone for the third time to put the score at 36-17.

West Liberty responded with a as Phillips and Robinson connected from 10 yards out, but Notre Dame put the game on ice with as Chris Brimm threw a 24-yard TD toss to Zaire Mitchell.

“We’ll get back and we’ll get better, we’ll work at it. It’s one game and we have nine more to go,” Waialae said. “That’s the bottom line. I’m getting ready for next week and we want to go 1-0 every week. This week we didn’t. But if we can keep compiling and compiling those 1-0s every week, we’ll be where we want to be.”

Logan Deri led the Hilltoppers defense with 15 total tackles including two sacks, three tackles for losses and an interception while Clay McDonald was also solid with 11 tackles. Both had career-high in tackles.

Phillips went 16 of 33 for 182 yards and two touchdowns and one interception as Robinson led the receiving core with six catches for 82 yards and a score.