Women's Volleyball | 11/16/2017 4:59:00 PM

Box Score

    WHEELING, W.Va. – The West Liberty University volleyball team powered into the semifinals of the Mountain East Conference Tournament for the second straight year here Thursday with a 3-0 romp past No. 3 seed Shepherd at the McDonough Center on the campus of Wheeling Jesuit University.
    Coach Kayla Mull's Hilltoppers (19-13) will take on No. 2 seed Charleston (17-13) in Friday's 5 p.m. semifinal. The Golden Eagles breezed to a 3-0 whitewash of No. 7 seed Concord in Thursday's other afternoon quarterfinal.
    "I'm really proud of my team," Mull said. "We're at the point in the year now where we totally control our own destiny. Our season could be over at any time so we're playing to keep playing. We just don't want it to end."
    West Liberty and Shepherd had traded road wins during the regular season but the Black and Gold were in command from the start on Thursday.
    The Hilltoppers led wire-to-wire in rolling to a 25-15 win in the opening set before reeling off the final five points of the second set to claim a 25-21 decision. West Liberty used a 7-0 run to turn a 5-3 deficit into a 10-5 lead early in the third set and never trailed again in closing out the sweep by a 25-21 count.
    "We really focused on jelling and playing together as a unit while we were preparing this week," senior standout Sydney Scherer said. "Shepherd's a very good team so we knew we had to come out strong and play hard to win and that's what we did."
    Raimey Benson led the way for WLU with a match-high 15 kills and 3 blocks while Scherer also impressed with 8 kills and 5 blocks to go along with a service ace.
    Amanda Leonard had 7 kills with a team-high 25 assists while Caitlin Clarke added 6 kills and Olivia Baumhoer chipped in with 5 kills and a match-high 6 blocks. Kailee Cunningham led all players with a match-high 19 digs
    "Give all the credit to West Liberty," Shepherd head coach Alex Hoekstra said. "You could tell they had done a lot of homework on us. They had a great game plan with a great defense and blocking scheme and they played it to a 'T.' They took away our favorite shots and forced us into second and third options. After playing them twice, we knew they were going to be a very tough opponent."
    Thursday's evening session was scheduled to get under way with a 5 p.m. quarterfinal between No. 4 seed Fairmont State and No. 5 seed Urbana. Top seed and defending champion Wheeling Jesuit closes out the night with a 7:30 p.m. quarterfinal against No. 8 seed West Virginia Wesleyan.
    The Fairmont/Urbana winner and the WJU/Wesleyan winner will meet in Friday's 7:30 p.m. semifinal. Friday's winners return to the court Saturday at 5 p.m. to play for the MEC championship.
  WEST LIBERTY (19-13)
     Raimey Benson 15-0-3; Sydney Scherer 8-1-5; Amanda Leonard 7-0-1; Caitlin Clarke 6-0-0; Olivia Baumhoer 5-0-6; Stephanie Leonard 3-0-4; Mackenzie Sims 1-0-0; Kailee Cunningham 0-1-0; Kendall Souder 0-1-0; Totals 45-2-10.0
     Assists: Amanda Leonard 25, Kendall Souder 11
     Digs: Kailee Cunningham 19
SHEPHERD (23-7)
     Christine Jackson 9-0-2; Amanda Snowden 9-0-0; Peyton Lindblad 8-0-1; Nicole Murray 6-0-2; Cambriea Hill 4-0-3; Jessica Karcz 1-1-0; Milleysha Otero 0-1-0; Totals 37-2-4.0
     Assists: Jessica Karcz 33
     Digs: Cambriea Hill 15, Imani Major 15, Jessica Karcz 12, Becca Kern 11, Milleysha Otero 11