WHEELING, W.Va. – The West Liberty University women's basketball team dropped an 82-75 decision at Wheeling Sunday afternoon at the McDonough Center.
    Coach Kyle Cooper's Hilltoppers (7-11, 3-9) stormed back from a 16-point deficit only to see the Cardinals (6-12, 5-7) survive a late WLU surge.
    The teams traded leads in the early going and Taylor Johnson's conventional 3-point play put West Liberty up, 18-17, with 2:34 left in the first quarter.
    That proved to be the start of a long dry spell for the Black and Gold, who didn't make another shot from the floor until just 1:42 remained in the first half.
    Wheeling took advantage of the Hilltoppers' shooting woes to open up a 44-31 halftime lead and kept right on rolling in the third quarter.
    "That drought definitely put us in a hole," Cooper said. "We need to do a better job of snapping out of those things when they get to 7-2 or something. When they stretch out to 13-2 or 15-2, it's hard to recover."
    The Cardinals seemed about to put the game on ice when a Lilly Ritz power post gave the hosts their largest lead of the day, 62-44, as the third quarter clock ticked under three minutes.
    That's when the lid came off the basket for WLU, however. Morgan Brunner scored on a driving layup and followed that up with a 3-pointer to jump start the West Liberty attack.
    The Hilltoppers scored 10 of the last 13 points in the quarter and opened the fourth frame on an 11-4 run, cutting the lead to 69-65 on a Corinne Thomas bonus bomb at the 7:30 mark.
    West Liberty kept the pressure on and got the margin down to three points on several occasions down the stretch and the game entered the final minute.
    A driving layup by Audrey Tingle cut the lead to 78-75 with 57 seconds left and the Black and Gold came up with a big stop at the other end.
    Thomas popped open for a game-tying 3-pointer at the 25-second mark but the shot refused to fall. Wheeling grabbed the rebound and was able to close the game out at the charity stripe.
    "I'm proud of my girls for the way they fought back and gave themselves a chance to win after a rough start," Cooper said. "We got the look we wanted at the end. It just didn't fall."
    Johnson and Brunner led the West Liberty scoring parade with 25 and 24 points, respectively - highlighted by a combined 15-of-15 showing at the foul line.
    Ritz had a huge game in the paint for Wheeling with 24 points and a staggering 26 rebounds. Khira Burton and Taliah Cashwell finished with 18 and 12 points, respectively.
    "My hat's off to Taylor and Morgan today," Cooper said. "Wheeling obviously wanted to be very physical with them throughout and those two never backed down.
    "It's disappointing not to come out of here with a win but nobody is going to feel sorry for us and we're not going to feel sorry for ourselves. We're just going to keep working hard and take advantage of the next opportunity."
    The Hilltoppers return home on Wednesday to host Davis & Elkins. Tipoff is set for 5:30 p.m. at the ASRC.