WHEELING, W.Va. – The West Liberty University volleyball team battled No. 13-ranked Wheeling Jesuit through three hard-fought sets on Friday only to come up short in a Mountain East Conference Tournament semifinal at WJU's McDonough Center.
    "We knew coming in that it was going to be a dogfight," WLU head coach Kayla Mull said. "West Liberty-Wheeling Jesuit matches always are.
    "I thought we went out tonight and left everything on the court. Things didn't turn out the way we wanted in the end but that's a credit to Wheeling Jesuit. They are just an amazing team."
    Mull's Hilltoppers (24-10) were ranked No. 9 in the Atlantic Region coming into the MEC Tournament and are in contention for an at-large bid to next week's NCAA Division II Atlantic Region Tournament. The tournament field will be announced late Sunday night.
    Wheeling Jesuit (33-3) has never lost an MEC regular-season or tournament match during the conference's six years of existence but West Liberty gave the Cardinals a run for their money on Friday.
    The Hilltoppers led for much of the opening set, pushing out to a 15-9 advantage midway through the lid-lifter, before the nationally-ranked hosts began chipping away.
    After forging a 22-22 tie, Wheeling Jesuit got back-to-back kills form Abby Strait and Haley Kramer to serve for set point at 24-22. The Hilltoppers' Stephanie Leonard sent home a kill, trimming the margin to 24-23, but WJU's Haley Kramer answered with a kill of her own for a 25-23 win.
    Jesuit took control early in the second set and stormed out to a commanding 19-9 lead. The Black and Gold battled back within striking distance at 23-19 but could get no closer as the hosts went up 2-0 with a 25-20 win.
    The third set swung back and forth in the early going but a 7-1 Cardinal surge turned a 12-11 West Liberty lead into an 18-13 deficit. The Hilltoppers were unable to dig their way out of the hole and WJU completed the sweep with a 25-17 win.
    First-team All-MEC senior Stephanie Leonard led the way for West Liberty, crushing a match-high 14 kills with an impressive .538 hitting percentage while picking up 3 blocks at the net. Caitlin Clarke and Amanda Leonard added 8 and 7 kills, respectively. Renee Lemke had 21 assists and Kendall Souder added 17 while Jo Lyn Jurek led the Hilltoppers with 13 digs.
    Lemke said the rivalry aspect of the West Liberty-Wheeling Jesuit matchup didn't really factor into the equation for the tournament showdown.
    "We try to approach it like just another match against a very good team," Lemke said. "We know what we can do and we know what they can do. We just tried to go out and play West Liberty volleyball. We played with them the whole way but they're just a really good team."
    Wheeling Jesuit advances to take on Charleston in Saturday's MEC Tournament championship game. Charleston handed Shepherd a convincing 3-1 setback in Friday's other semifinal. Shepherd came into the MEC Tournament as the region's No. 7-ranked squad.