Women's Volleyball | 11/17/2017 9:38:00 PM

Box Score

    WHEELING, W.Va. – The West Liberty University women's volleyball team punched its ticket to the Mountain East Conference Tournament championship match with a convincing 3-1 romp past No. 2 seed Charleston in Friday night's first semifinal at Wheeling Jesuit University.
    Coach Kayla Mull's Hilltoppers (20-13) will take on No. 24-ranked and top-seeded host Wheeling Jesuit (30-5) Saturday at 5 p.m. with the tournament title and the MEC's automatic NCAA Tournament bid up for grabs.
    The Cardinals – who have never lost a Mountain East Conference regular-season or tournament match – escaped with a 3-2 win against upset-minded Urbana in Friday's late semifinal.
    West Liberty got its semifinal off to a fast start with a 25-18 win in the opening set but the Golden Eagles (17-14) rebounded with a 25-18 victory in the second set to square the match. The Black and Gold regained the upper hand by leading wire-to-wire for a 25-20 nod in the third set before closing out the match with a dominant 25-11 rout in the fourth and final set.
    "You don't have a lot of time to prepare in the tournament format," Mull said. "We still scouted (Charleston) but we tried to keep things as simple as we could for our players. The mentality was let's just play and go for it today so we get the chance to play again tomorrow."
    Olivia Baumhoer put down a match-high 14 kills to pace a multi-pronged attack for the winners. Amanda Leonard made a run at a triple-double with a match-high 22 assists, 14 digs and 7 kills while twin sister Stephanie Leonard chipped in with 7 kills and a match-high 5 blocks. Caitlin Clarke and Raimey Benson combined for 11 kills, Kailee Cunningham led all players with 19 digs and freshman Kendall Souder charted a double-double with 17 assists and 10 digs.
    Baumhoer said the turning point of the match may have come during the transition following UC's match-tying win in the second set.
    "Charleston's a really good team so we knew they were going to come back strong after we won the first set," Baumhoer said. "After they came back and tied it, we just stepped back, took a deep breath and told ourselves, 'It's OK. We can do this. We KNOW we can do this. Then we went back out and played like the second set hadn't happened."
    Baumhoer opened the third set with back-to-back kills as West Liberty grabbed a quick 4-0 lead. The Golden Eagles were able to keep things close for most of the set but the Hilltoppers never trailed again.
    "Coach (Mull) always tells us the postseason is just volleyball in a party dress," Baumhoer said with a smile. "We just needed to go out and play the same type of volleyball that we have been playing because we finished the season really strong. We just wanted to build on that momentum and play every game like it might be our last."
    Speaking at the post-game press conference before the start of the WJU/Urbana semifinal, Mull said the Hilltoppers didn't have a preference for which team they might face on Saturday.
    "Either way, we know we're going to be facing a very talented team," Mull said. "Urbana is a very aggressive serving team that plays a very up-tempo style, similar to what we saw from Charleston tonight. Jesuit runs an extremely fast offense with a setter who does a great job and they have a tremendous cast of hitters. Whoever we play, we're going to be as prepared as we can for them."
  WEST LIBERTY (20-13)
     Olivia Baumhoer 14-0-2; Amanda Leonard 7-2-2; Stephanie Leonard 7-0-5; Sydney Scherer 7-0-3; Caitllin Clarke 6-0-1; Raimey Benson 5-0-1; Mackenzie Sims 3-1-0; Kendall Souder 1-4-0; Jo Lyn Jurek 1-0-0; Kailee Cunningham 0-1-0; Totals 51-8-8.0
     Assists: Amanda Leonard 22, Kendall Souder 17
     Digs: Kailee Cunningham 19, Amanda Leonard 14, Kendall Souder 10
CHARLESTON (17-14)
     Carly Granger 13-1-2; Jour'Ney Powell 7-0-4; Megan Mourier 7-0-1; Tori Clark 5-1-2; Janeese Vervelde 5-0-3; Jessica Sunnenberg 3-0-3; Claire Lambert 1-0-0; Chloe Massaro 0-1-0; Totals 41-3-7.0
     Assists: Chloe Massaro 21, Claire Lambert 14
     Digs: Tori Clark 16, Kelsey Matusic 14, Carly Granger 13, Claire Lambert 12