Women's Basketball | 3/4/2020 5:25:00 PM

Box Score     WHEELING, W.Va. – The West Virginia State women's basketball team reeled off nine unanswered points down the stretch here Wednesday to end West Liberty's season with a 64-54 setback in a Mountain East Conference Tournament first-round game at WesBanco Arena.
    Coach Kyle Cooper's Hilltoppers (12-17) delivered a strong defensive effort but struggled to find the range throughout against the Yellow Jackets (10-19) and their stifling zone defense.
    The West Liberty women hit just 19-of-67 (28 percent) of their shots from the floor and were just 9-of-44 (20 percent) from the 3-point line. Both numbers were season-lows for the Black and Gold.
    "We just couldn't get anything going today," Cooper said, "but State deserves a lot of credit for that. They were very disruptive at the top in their defense. We weren't able to get the shot selection we wanted and turned the ball over too much, especially in the first half.
    "I'm still proud of my girls. Even with all the adversity, we never stopped fighting and gave ourselves a chance when we finally strung some shots together in the fourth quarter. We just weren't able to make enough plays at the end."
    The Hilltoppers found themselves on the wrong end of a double-digit deficit, 49-39, when West Virginia State's Sierra Womack hit a second-chance hoop with 8:30 remaining in the fourth quarter.
    With the game - and the season - on the line, West Liberty responded with its best surge of the afternoon. Audrey Tingle bombed in a 3-pointer from the left corner and the Hilltoppers went on to score 11 of the next 14 points.
    Olivia Belknap's 3-pointer capped the run, making it a one-possession game, 53-50, and forcing a Yellow Jacket timeout with 2:44 to play.
    "We knew we had an advantage inside with Chloe (Cheresne)," WVSU coach Charles Marshall said, "and I thought that was the key to the game. We were able to pull ourselves back together and Chloe made some big plays down the stretch."
    Cheresne, a 6-0 sophomore post, powered her way to the basket on the ensuing possession for a 55-50 lead and when WLU misfired on its next two possessions, Cheresne hit four straight free throws to put the game out of reach, 61-50, with less than a minute remaining.
    "Cheresne is a very tough guard for us," Cooper said. "She's a very old-school post who does some things that make it really tough to get a stop against her but in all honesty, I thought we played well enough defensively to win.
    "We held them to 64 points, which is more than 20 points below their season scoring average. We just couldn't capitalize on the opportunities we had at the other end of the floor."
    Cheresne scored 19 of her game-high 27 points in the second half and also pulled down a game-high 10 rebounds. Womack was State's only other double-figure scorer with 14 points.
    West Liberty seniors Taylor Johnson and Morgan Brunner went down with all guns blazing. Johnson tallied a team-high 21 points - giving her 989 points in her two seasons on the hilltop - while Brunner drained five 3-pointers to finish with 15 points.
    Brunner, who scored 964 points and made 219 3-pointers in her two years at WLU after transferring from Youngstown State, leads all NCAA Division II women this year with 111 3-point field goals and now ranks No. 2 nationally with 3.89 3FGs/Game.
    The 111 3-pointers are one shy of 2016 WLU graduate Liz Flowers' MEC single-season record of 112 bonus bombs but Brunner did set a new single-season standard for field goal percentage (75-of-78, .962).
    The previous MEC record was held by Wheeling's Monica Burns, who went 138-for-147 (.946) from the charity stripe in 2017.
    West Virginia State advances to Thursday night's 6 p.m. quarterfinal against top-seeded Glenville State.