WHEELING, W.Va. – The regionally-ranked West Liberty University volleyball team roared back from a 2-0 deficit here Thursday night to beat West Virginia State, 3-2, in a Mountain East Conference Tournament quarterfinal at the McDonough Center.
    Coach Kayla Mull's Hilltoppers (24-9) advance to take on top-seeded and No. 13-ranked Wheeling Jesuit (32-3) in Friday's 7:30 p.m. semifinal. The Cardinals, who have never lost an MEC regular-season or tournament match, swept No. 8-seed Fairmont State (13-17) in a hard-fought match by scores of 25-19, 27-25 and 27-25.
    Checking in at No. 9 in the latest set of NCAA Division II Atlantic Region rankings, West Liberty found itself in an early hole on Thursday as the Yellow Jackets (25-11) dominated the first two sets by scores of 25-20 and 25-16.
    "Even though we've been here before, I think there were just a lot of nerves going on with us in the beginning," Mull said. "The other part of that is that (West Virginia) State has gotten so much better. They are so well-coached and were just fighting for every point. We just had to realize we had to do that, as well."
    The tide turned decisively in the third set as the Hilltoppers led wire-to-wire in a 25-12 blowout to keep their season alive.
    "That just set the tone for the rest of the match," All-MEC senior Stephanie Leonard said. "It was like we came out there and said, 'We got this. It doesn't matter what happened in the first two sets. This is our set right here and we really stayed together and proved it."
    The fourth set swung back and forth with 11 ties and 6 lead changes. State was within shouting distance of closing out the match when they took a 22-20 lead but West Liberty had other ideas.
    Back-to-back blocks by Madison Clayton and Stephanie Leonard – who had passed the 1,000-kill career milestone earlier in the match – pulled the Hilltoppers even at 22-22.
    Clayton followed that up with consecutive kills to reach set point at 24-22 and teamed with senior Raimey Benson on the key block that sealed a 25-22 West Liberty win.
    The fifth set was all Hilltoppers as WLU jumped out to a 9-2 lead and never looked back. West Liberty closed things out in style with a convincing 15-6 win, thanks in large part to an eye-popping .615 hitting percentage.
    Clayton, a dominant 6-5 force at the net, finished with 16 kills and 8 blocks - both match-highs - to go along with a team-high 4 service aces but the talented sophomore had plenty of help. Stephanie Leonard backed Clayton with 15 kills and 4 blocks while twin sister Amanda Leonard had 9 kills and 3 blocks.
    Renee Lemke charted a double-double with 31 assists and 10 digs while Kendall Souder contributed 24 assists and 9 digs. Jo Lyn Jurek led all players with a match-high 21 digs.
    "It feels good to get that first win out of the way," Mull said. "There were different expectations this year so that may have been where the nerves came from tonight but now that we've gotten through that, we're ready to meet the next challenge."