AZUSA, Calif. -- It was called by many as the best tournament of the year with 3 of the NAIA’s top 4 ranked teams. It ended with No. 2-ranked Mountain St. (W.Va.) sending a message to the rest of the nation that this could be its year

The Cougars knocked off No. 1-ranked Concordia last night, and followed it up with a 94-80 win over No. 4 Azusa Pacific in the 17th Annual Cougar Classic.

Zach Moss had a game-high 34 points, including 19 in the first half, as Mountain St. scored the first 7 points of the game and never looked back.

The win moves Mountain St. to 8-0 on the season, while Azusa Pacific drops to 2-3. The Cougars, from Beckley, W.Va., who were the NAIA runners-up last season, not only avenged last year’s title game loss to Concordia, but they were a perfect 2-0 on their first-ever West Coast swing, knocking off 2 top 5 teams in the process.

The athletic and talented Moss, a 6-7 senior from Pampano Beach, Fla., was too much for the Cougar big men to handle all night. Combined with last night’s 22-point effort against Concordia, Moss totaled 56 points in the 2-day event, breaking the Classic’s 9-year scoring record of 52 points formerly held by Azusa Pacific’s Raymond Tutt.

Zane Gilliard scored the first 7 points of the game, following a conventional 4-point play with another trey. Moss then went to work, along with Anthony Walker to keep the Cougars at bay. The Cougars were never able to get closer than 3 points, while the Mountain St. lead ballooned to 10 on 3 different occasions in the first half. Brett Michel’s 3-pointer with 7:34 to play in the half brought the Cougars to within 3 (31-28), but Mountain St. responded with 7 straight points, including 5 straight from Walker to open up a 38-28 lead with 5:39 to play.

Danny Rosales hit a jumper to open the second half to make it 48-44. However, Gilliard’s third and final trey sparked an 11-4 Mountain St. spurt in which Moss had 6 straight points to push the lead up to 11 (59-48) with just 3 4 minutes gone by in the second half. Brice Prather made it a 9-point game (59-50), but again MSU answered with a 12-0 run over the next 2 minutes to put the game on ice with a 71-50 lead with 13:40 to play. The lead was as big as 23 (86-63) with 6:30 to play, and a late Cougar flurry made the 14-point final deficit look closer than it was.

Moss finished 13-for-18 from the floor and added 7 rebounds. Walker finished with 15, and Gilliard had 14. Adrian Jackson added 13 points and 13 assists, and he also set a new Classic record with 24 assists in the 2 games, breaking the old mark of 19 by Martel Johnson of La Verne, which he set in 1986.

Dennis Coutee led Azusa Pacific with 20 points and 6 rebounds off the bench. Michel finished with 12, and Ryan Dillon also added 12, all of them coming on 3-pointers.