WHEELING, W.Va. – The West Liberty University women's basketball team rose a stifling defensive effort to a Mountain East Conference championship Saturday afternoon, pulling away to a 60-48 victory at Wheeling Jesuit's McDonough Center.

Coach Lynn Ullom's Hilltoppers (20-8, 17-5) snapped the Cardinals' (18-8, 15-7) 8-game winning streak and clinched their first league title in a decade by holding Wheeling Jesuit to just four field goals over the final 20 minutes.

"We played defense just about as well as we can play it in the second half today," Ullom said. "Liz Flowers may have struggled on offense today but she was phenomenal at the other end of the court and so was the rest of the team."

It was West Liberty that struggled for much of the first half as the Hilltoppers missed their first nine 3-point shots and trailed by as many as 10 points on several occasions.

Wheeling Jesuit held a 30-25 lead at the break but it didn't last long as West Liberty opened the second half on a 16-5 run.

After going just 1-for-14 from behind the arc in the first half, the Hilltoppers hit two 3-pointers in the first 1:19 of the second half.

An Emily Bucon 3-pointer snapped a 33-33 deadlock and put WLU ahead to stay, 36-33, with 14:25showing on the second half clock.

"Wheeling plays a really good zone," Ullom said, "but I still didn't expect us to go 1-of-14 from deep in the first half. Emily hit two big 3-pointers early in the second half and that seemed to open things up."

Mariah Callan cut West Liberty's lead to 41-38 with WJU's only 3-pointer of the game at the 10:31mark but even though the Cardinals were able to keep things close for a few more minutes, they would make only one more shot from the floor the rest of the day.

A pair of Taylor Lubinsky free throws pulled Wheeling Jesuit within a bucket, 46-44, with 4:20remaining but the Hilltoppers' Kailee Howe took over from there.

Howe, who leads the nation in assists, answered with a slick drive to the hoop and then fed Kiki Simpson for an uncontested layup after a steal for a 50-44 West Liberty lead with a little more than 3 minutes remaining.

The playmaking backcourter scored 9 of her game-high 14 points in the final 4 minutes as the Hilltoppers slowly pulled away.

"That's why we call her the 'closer,' " Ullom said with a smile. "Kailee probably didn't have her best game today either but she has a knack for coming up big down the stretch."

Hillary Southworth backed Howe with 13 points and 6 rebounds while Simpson had a huge game in the paint with 12 points, 13 rebounds and 4 blocked shots. Jaila Bryant led the Cardinals with 12 points and 11 rebounds.

"I'm so proud of these girls for dealing with all the adversity this year," Ullom said. "The injuries could have crushed us – we basically played a month and a half without 3 key players – but everybody else picked up the slack and we just kept finding ways to win. 

"The first thing I said to the team after the game today was 'thank you.' I'm really grateful for the way they never stopped battling and I'm so happy for them to see all that hard work pay off with a championship."

As the No. 1 seed in next week's MEC Tournament, the Hillltoppers earned a first-round bye. They won't hit the court again until Thursday at 6 p.m. when they hit the court in Charleston for a quarterfinal tilt against the winner of Tuesday's first-round game between UVA-Wise and Concord.

GAME NOTES

X West Liberty finished in a 3-way tie with Charleston and Shepherd for first place in the MEC but claimed the conference title via tiebreakers.

X The Hilltoppers improved to 121-29 in February games over the past 15 seasons

X West Liberty has reached the 20-win milestone for the 9th time in the past 10 seasons

X Ullom is now 40-16 (.714) against Wheeling Jesuit in his 24 years with the Hilltoppers