WHEELING, W.Va. – Mountain East Conference Player of the Year Will Vorhees made both ends of a 1-and-1 with just 5 seconds remaining to seal the No. 3-seeded Falcons' 100-96 upset of top-seeded and No. 5-ranked West Liberty in Sunday's MEC Tournament championship game at WesBanco Arena.
    Coach Ben Howlett's Hilltoppers (26-4) had battled back from an 8-point second-half deficit to take a late lead but couldn't find an answer for the hulking Vorhees and his hot-shooting teammates down the stretch.
    Vorhees finished with 29 points, 14 rebounds and 8 assists to lead a Notre Dame team that shot 56 percent from the floor for the game and better than 62 percent (18-of-29) in the second half.
    "I thought we played hard today," said Howlett as he looked at the final stats, "but anytime you let a team shoot 60 percent in the second half and you lose the rebounding battle by 41-25, that's a basketball game you're never going to win.
    "Give all the credit to Notre Dame. They came in here and made shots all week. They have the guy I believe is the best player in the country in Vorhees. He's 6-8 and 260 pounds, never leaves the floor and puts up huge numbers in points, rebounds and assists. He's an impressive young man."
    West Liberty, which struggled to find its offensive rhythm most of the day, was staring up at an 88-80 deficit with just 5:33 remaining when the Black and Gold finally started to click.
    A 3-point bomb by Luke Dyer followed by a fast break layup from scintillating freshman guard Yahel Hill capped an 11-2 burst and gave WLU its first lead of the second half and forced a Notre Dame timeout.
    "I thought we finally had things going our way," Howlett said. "We're up by a point, the whole arena is behind us. This place was really loud. Then we have a couple of guys fall asleep on defense and give up wide-open back door cuts. We're defending really well against a great offensive team and then let them off the hook with a couple of mental errors on crucial possessions."
    Neither team scored on its next possession but Vorhees found a wide-open Hodges under the basket for an uncontested layup and a 92-91 Falcon lead as the clock turned under 2 minutes. The Hilltoppers missed on a 3-point try and Vorhees muscled in a rebound of his own miss at the other end to make it 94-91 with 1:23 to go.
    Will Yoakum hit a pair of free throws for West Liberty, cutting the lead to 94-93, but Notre Dame was able to run the clock down under a minute before Vorhees found Isaiah Sanders back-cutting down the baseline for a one-handed slam.
    The Falcons' Halil Parks came up with a huge steal in the backcourt and fed Sanders for a runout dunk to make it 98-93 with just 11 seconds to play. Hill knocked down his seventh 3-pointer of the game for WLU with 5 seconds left, cutting the lead to 98-96, only to see Vorhees close things out at the line.
    The loss took some of the spotlight off an incredible performance by Hill, who almost single-handedly rewrote the MEC championship game record book.
    The freshman guard set an MEC Tournament championship game record with a career-high 35 points, going 14-of-16 from the floor and 7-of-8 from the 3-point arc.
    " 'Ya' was incredible today," Howlett said. "That's just a phenomenal shooting performance but that's the kind of talent he brings to the table. When he gets locked in like he was today, he's almost automatic. I'm really looking forward to watching him continue to develop over the next four years."
    After struggling from the field in their first two tournament games, the Hilltoppers set an MEC Tournament record with 16 3-point field goals on Sunday. Dalton Bolon had four bonus bombs for the bulk of his 16 points while Eric Meininger added 15 points, 7 rebounds and 7 assists.
    Hodges backed Vorhees for Notre Dame with 22 points and 8 rebounds while Larenz Thurman and Parks finished with 17 and 16 points, respectively.
    "We're not through playing yet," Howlett said, noting that the Hilltoppers expected to receive their 10^th straight NCAA Division II Tournament bid when the 2019 field is announced late Sunday night.
    "There's a history in our program of West Liberty teams losing in the conference tournament and then putting together an NCAA Tournament run. We'll take tomorrow off to get these guys some rest and then get back on the floor Tuesday to get ready to go."
    Meininger and Hill represented West Liberty on the MEC All-Tournament Team. Hill also received the award as the leading scorer in the tournament with a 23.7 ppg. average for his three games.