West Liberty’s 2021 signing class seemed complete back in November when Head Coach Kyle Cooper and the Hilltoppers added four quality players during the early signing period.
But Cooper and associate head coach Cassie Seth added one more addition as a late surprise last month to round of the class—a BIG surprise.
Move over Arriana Manzay, at 6-foot-3, you are no longer the tallest Hilltopper on the team. That’s because WLU picked up Division I transfer and graduate student Molly Bauer for her final game of the season.
Bauer, who stands 6-4, is coming in from Division I Fairfield playing out of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. While Bauer didn’t have a ton of minutes during her collegiate career, she’s still a proven commodity that’s played against high level talent and the ability is there.
A Western, Pa. native, Bauer played for the WPA Bruins during her AAU days in high school and that connection played a big role in landing her. The number of former Bruins on the roster continues to grow as West Liberty has worked hard to form inroads into the lucrative recruiting market in this half of Pennsylvania.
She gives the Hilltoppers another true post, one of only two remaining on the roster Manzay came in during the 2020 class as a junior college transfer and made an immediate impact, starting 16 of 17 games and averaging 10.8 points and 6.5 rebounds.
Bauer’s size and skill set will make it even easier for West Liberty to stretch the floor. Whether Manzay or Bauer or playing the floor, West Liberty can spread the floor and force the defense to decide to either guard the size in the post 1-on-1, or provide help and give openings to the Hilltoppers seemingly unending supply of 3-point shooters out on the perimeter extra spacing with which to work.
“With the freshmen we have coming in, plus who we have back at guard, we can really stretch the floor more now more than ever,” Cooper said. “Obviously, we love to shoot the three and spread the floor in a big way. (Manzay and Bauer) will allow us to play that true 4-out, 1-in look. If they help in the post, it opens up the backside for shooters. Or they guard the post 1-on-1.”
Plus, looking around the conference, there’s not a lot of size capable of defending the post 1-on-1. Wheeling All-American Lily Ritz opted to test the D-I waters at Youngstown State. The key battle will come against Concord and Riley Fitzwater, who is now the premier post player in the MEC and is back for one more season.
The Scorers
As stated, West Liberty’s recruiting class has been four strong since the early signing period. In fact, you could say the Hilltoppers are getting two Division I players in this class.
Maysville’s Bailee Smith, the lone Buckeye State product in this year’s class, originally verbaled to Youngstown State back in September of 2019. But when Smith decided to look elsewhere, West Liberty rocketed to the top of the list given her family’s previous working relationship with Cooper.
What West Liberty is receiving in Smith is a four-time all-Ohioan who averaged 26.3 ppg as a senior and finished as her school’s all-time leading scorer and with 211 career 3-pointers, never hitting less than 49 per season.
“Bailee can score at all three levels. She’s a college ready scorer who can impact the game immediately,” Cooper said previously back in November.
Next up is Mohawk 5-8 dynamo guard Paige Julian.
A former and now current teammate of West Liberty freshman Karly McCutcheon, Julian is a three time all-WPIAL honoree and WPIAL Class 3A champion.
This season, she led the Warriors in both scoring (20.2) and rebounds (7.1) while pushing the team to the PIAA 3A championship game, where Mohawk fell to West Catholic.
But there’s a more telling stat that clues you in to what makes Julian a special player, one any coach would love to have.
Consider this. During her senior season, Julian drew 30 charge calls, this after taking 52 as a junior. Most teams don’t draw that many, yet the team’s leading scorer was willing to put herself in harm’s way for the good of the team, and repeatedly.
“Paige has that winning edge,” Cooper said. “She’s ultra-athletic and also a track star who gives us a real downhill scorer who plays hard and flies around the court.”
Baldwin’s Anna Lucarelli is another 5-8 guard with a high-motor and high IQ, as her 4.0-plus GPA will attest.
She didn’t put up quite the gawdy statistics as some of the other recruits. However, Lucarelli has innate leadership qualities that can’t be taught. Need an example? She was named a captain for the Highlanders every year she played at Baldwin, including her freshman season.
The Final Pieces
Baldwin’s Anna Lucarelli is another 5-8 guard with a high-motor and high IQ, as her 4.0-plus GPA will attest.
She didn’t put up quite the gawdy statistics as some of the other recruits. However, Lucarelli has innate leadership qualities that can’t be taught. Need an example? She was named a captain for the Highlanders every year she played at Baldwin, including her freshman season.
“The thing that really jumped out at us about Anna is the fact that her motor is just off the charts,” Cooper said. “She’s long and athletic so she can get up in someone’s face and defend them, plus she has an unbelievable stroke from the arc.”
The final piece to the recruiting puzzle is another 5-8 guard in Norwin’s Danielle Rosso.
Rosso was named all-WPIAL for Class 6A while averaging better than 15 points per game
“Danielle also has a high motor and high basketball IQ, but she plays more on the ball so she’s a true point in our system,” Cooper said. “She sees the floor very well and has what we call the ‘passing gene’ but she’s also a gifted scorer.”
