The first round of the Mountain East women’s basketball tournament will begin and end Wednesday at WesBanco Arena.
And it will do so without either West Liberty or Wheeling University.
For Hilltoppers’ head coach Kyle Cooper, that’s exactly the way he and his players wanted it. By virtue of back-to-back wins against Notre Dame College and rival Wheeling on Saturday, West Liberty assured itself a top sixth ranking in the MEC—a fifth place finish and a meeting with No. 4 Fairmont State when quarterfinal round play begins Thursday.
The Hilltoppers and Falcons will serve as the nightcap at 8:30 p.m., while the No. 6 Cardinals will square off with No. 3 Wheeling at 2:30 p.m.
“Overall, I’m happy with the way we finished the year with two wins, to close it out,” Cooper said. “Not only do we not have to play on Wednesday, but we were able to finish in the upper half of the league, even though a couple of times throughout the season, we did not play to what we feel is our standard level. Our expectations were maybe we could have finished a bit higher, but all and all, we’re pretty pleased with the way it came together and we feel dangerous going into the tournament.”
It certainly helps coming off a cherished, come-from-behind win against your biggest rival, on your home floor, to avenge an earlier season loss.
Trailing by as many as 14 points in the third quarter, West Liberty made its move thanks in large part to 11 straight from junior Corinne Thomas, a stretch that included half of her six 3-pointers for the game.
Thomas’ 27 sparked four ‘Toppers in double figures and fueled the 87-84 comeback victory, exacting revenge for a 74-68 late January setback down at Wheeling.
“It definitely felt good,” Cooper admitted. “Early on, we were not in a good state of flow and not doing a ton defensively to help our cause. But we adjusted and responded and started playing our brand of basketball and were able to make that charge and come out with a huge in.”
The Rematch
Now the attention turns to Fairmont State and a rubber-match with the Falcons. Twice the two teams met during the MEC regular season and twice did the visiting team come away with a victory.
At Fairmont, dueling 18-point efforts from Grace Faulk and leading-scorer Arianna Manzay led to a 82-69 win. On February 18, that “dueling” consisted of 32-point efforts from Manzay and Fairmont’s Alyssa DeAngelo, with the Falcons making good with a 91-85 win.
The winner of this match-up will likely face No. 1 ranked Glenville State, which Thursday will face the winner of Wednesday’s Davis & Elkins/Frostburg State first-round contest.
Wins against Fairmont and what in all likelihood will be Glenville might be enough to get West Liberty a spot in the Top 8 in the Atlantic Region come NCAA tourney selection time, but the only sure fire way to do it is to win the MEC and capture the conference’s automatic bid.
And doing that requires first to get past Fairmont, and that’s where the Hilltoppers’ focus lies.
“We have to control what we can control and let the chips fall where they may,” Cooper said. “I know people talk about parity, but our region is really strong this year and we may need to reach the championship game and maybe win it to qualify.
“But we want to be playing for championships and there is nothing our team is motivated for more than playing against and beating Fairmont, especially since we lost to them 10 days ago.
“We’re not thinking the NCAA or even potentially Glenville in the next round. It’s all about Fairmont.”
Polished Offensive Production
West Liberty has made great strides defensively this season, though Cooper admits they “still go through moments and stretches where we allow other teams to do the things they want to do offensively.”
Improvement is noticeable though.
But through it all, the Hilltoppers have remained consistently, and statistically, one of the top offensive teams in Division II. Seldom do the numbers lie.
The Hilltoppers are sixth in field goal percentage and third in 3-point percentage in Division II. WLU is also sixth nationally in scoring offense.
Equally as important, Cooper’s club is third in assists per game, meaning not only is the team scoring plentiful amounts of points, but it’s not all coming from one or two hot hands.
West Liberty is distributing the ball, and the workload, amongst a bevy of offensive weapons.
A healthy Thomas is a constant threat from the perimeter and owns the best 3-point percentage on the team (.435). She’s missed 10 games, however, but when healthy, must be accounted for anywhere on the court.
Faulk and Karly McCutcheon are ranked nationally for 3-pointers made and percentage. They average 11.6 and 17.1 per game and McCutcheon was recently honored after scoring her 1,000th point.
That’s a lot of firepower from the outside. Yet, it’s the 6-foot-3 Manzay who is the team’s leading scorer at 19 points per game to go with her 9.9 rebounds.
Her size, athleticism and dedication to improving her skills has allowed the senior from Lubbock Texas to have a truly breakout season.
She’s not the only one either. A season-ending preseason injury to returning leading scorer Bailee Smith necessitated others step further into the limelight to shine. And shine they have.
“Our improvement has kind of been two-fold,” Cooper said. “We saw tremendous jumps from multiple players and we’ve seen that in their production and it’s going to continue to get better.
“Corinne has been a rock the last couple of seasons and we’ve seen Karly and Grae go from being good to taking that next step.
“And when you put those with a post player who I feel is one of the premier posts in the country, it’s given us one of our deepest and most athletic rosters we’ve ever had.
“Our depth took a hit with Bailee because she’s a go get you a bucket type of kid. She does shift the narrative, so it’s allowed others to emerge.”
Cards and Eagles
Wheeling will have a third go-round in trying to knock off the Golden Eagles of Charleston, a team that beat the Cardinals by 14 points on two previous occasions this season.
The Cardinals (14-14, 12-10) have experienced an up-and-down, streaky season, with equal runs of winning and losing.
They had a four-game winning streak, capped by a triumph against West Virginia State, at State, the No. 2 ranked team in the MEC tourney. A six-game losing streak followed that upset win, followed by another five-game win streak, capped by the January 21 win against the Hilltoppers.
The team is led by Lauren Calhoun and her 18.3 points per game. She’s the only Cardinals player to average double figures in scoring, though the next six are balanced in that they provide between five and nine per contest.
Including in that range is former Wheeling Park standout Shanley Woods, who’s averaging 9.1 per game and is the team’s leading outside threat with 54 triples.
Joining Woods in the starting lineup is freshman point guard Kenzie Dalton from Fort Frye. Dalton has started all 28 points and is third in the MEC in assists and 10th in steals.
