Women's Basketball | 3/1/2018 11:36:00 PM

Box Score

    CHARLESTON, W.Va. – Despite a gallant comeback effort, the West Liberty University women couldn't battle all the way back from an early deficit here Thursday night as Fairmont State held on for a 64-55 win in a Mountain East Conference Tournament quarterfinal.
    Coach Kyle Cooper's No. 4-seeded Hilltoppers (13-16) struggled to find the range in the early going against an aroused FSU (16-13) squad looking to avenge a pair of regular-season losses to the Black and Gold.
    Brandi Beader hit West Liberty's first basket with 8:13 on the first-quarter clock, knotting the score at 2-2, but it would be a long time before the Hilltoppers were able to ring the bell again.
    West Liberty missed its next 15 attempts from the floor and didn't get another field goal until Marissa Brown muscled her way inside for a layup at 6:20 of the second quarter.
    That cut Fairmont's lead to 23-11 but the fired-up Falcons weren't finished. A Sierra Kotchman 3-pointer followed by a Hope Bray free throw and a Kotchman jumper gave Fairmont State its biggest lead of the night, 29-11, with 4:39 still remaining in the first half.
    "Give Fairmont credit," Cooper said. "Winning is more about how hard you play and how much you want it than x's and o's. They came at us hard right from the start. They were extremely physical, especially on defense, and they took us out of our game."
    But the Hilltoppers weren't ready to go home just yet. West Liberty held the Falcons scoreless for the rest of the half and a last-minute 3-pointer from Olivia Belknap trimmed the deficit to 29-20 at the break.
    "One of the things that makes me so proud to coach this team is that they never quit," Cooper said. "Once we got to the locker room, we talked about how important it was for us to match Fairmont's physicality and effort at both ends of the floor."
    Brown – the leading scorer in the Atlantic Region and one of the top five scorers in the nation – began to become even more of an offensive presence when play resumed and the Hilltoppers chipped away at the lead.
    Back-to-back hoops by Brown made it a one-possession game, 40-37, midway through the third quarter but Kotchman – the MEC Freshman of the Year – stopped the bleeding for the Falcons with another 3-pointer and Fairmont was able to take a 48-41 lead into the fourth quarter.
    Belknap opened the final 10 minutes with a 3-pointer for WLU, cutting the deficit to 48-44, but the Falcons scored five straight points for a 53-44 advantage at the 5-minute mark. The Hilltoppers could get no closer and when Brown fouled out down the stretch, the game was gone.
    Kotchman paced Fairmont with 20 points while Kelli Jo Harrison added 17 points and 14 rebounds and Brooke Kurucz chipped in with 11.
    "We made runs at them the whole second half but just couldn't get over the hump," Cooper said. "They did a great job of maintaining their defensive intensity for the entire 40 minutes, which is incredibly hard to do. Plus, it seemed like every time we would get it down to 3 or 4 points, they would step up and hit a big shot."
    Despite being double- and triple-teamed throughout the night, the 6-3 Brown still managed to put up monster numbers. The first-team All-MEC junior post fell just short of a triple-double with 23 points, 15 rebounds and an MEC Tournament-record 8 blocked shots. Beader was WLU's only other double-figure scorer with 16 tallies as the Hilltoppers shot a season-low 24 percent (15-of-62) from the floor – including a 12 percent (2-of-16) showing from behind the 3-point arc.
    "I think it gives you some idea of how special a player Marissa is when you're talking about what a good job Fairmont did in holding Marissa down tonight and you look at the box score and she almost had a triple-double," Cooper said.
    "Marissa made the commitment to come back to school in tremendous shape for the start of practice in the fall and her growth and development has been incredible to watch, not just for me but for her teammates. They're her biggest fans and she is a terrific teammate. This was a tough pill to swallow tonight but we have a lot of positives with this group heading into next season."