West Liberty, W.Va. – The West Liberty University women's basketball team put together a strong fourth quarter but it was not enough to complete the comeback as Edinboro secured a 72-69 win on Saturday night in the ASRC. The Hilltoppers faced a deficit as large as 19 points in the contest and cut the deficit to one in the closing seconds despite shooting woes in the second and third quarters.
 
QUICK DETAILS
Final Score: West Liberty 69, Edinboro 72
Team Records: West Liberty 1-1, Edinboro 1-1
Attendance: 643
 
HOW IT HAPPENED

• Off an assist from Jenna Riccardo, Bailee Smith knocked the 3-pointer for the first points of the game only 23 seconds into the contest. Karly McCutcheon and Bailey Beckstedt knocked down 3-pointers to even the game at ten and 17 points respectively, however Edinboro connected on a pair of free throws to gain a 19-17 advantage after the opening ten minutes.
• Riccardo scored on a pair of free throws to tie the game at 19 with 9:32 left till halftime, but that would be the last time the game would be tied as the Fighting Scots broke the game open on a 15-1 scoring run to take a 34-20 lead with 5:02 left in the second quarter. Edinboro led by as many as 17 following a 3-pointer by Jenna Babay, but Beckstedt sparked a stretch of five consecutive points to cut the lead back down to 12 as Natalija Sekulovska made a pair of free throws. The Fighting Scots entered the locker room with a 40-27 advantage.
• Edinboro opened the second half with an 8-2 scoring run to grab their largest lead of the game at 48-29 with 7:59 left in the third quarter. While only shooting 2-of-10 from the field in the quarter, West Liberty remained within striking distance as they continued to be aggressive and got to the free throw line. The Hilltoppers connected on 12-of-14 free throws in the period. The Black & Gold outscored the Fighting Scots 6-2 in the final 3:07 to keep the deficit at 13 points entering the final ten minutes of game time.
• Edinboro opened the fourth with a pair of layups to go back up by 17 points. West Liberty began their charge back with a pair of free throws by Corinne Thomas with 6:11 left in the game, sparking an 11-2 scoring run as a layup by Paige Julian cut the deficit to single digits (65-56). After a layup by Edinboro momentarily pushed the lead back to 11, Julian hit a pair of free throws to keep the momentum going. Thomas then made the two biggest shots up to that point with back-to-back 3-points bringing the Hilltoppers within three points. Thomas' third 3-pointer of the game cut the lead down to one with 5.6 seconds remaining in the game, however the Fighting Scots were clutch at the charity stripe as they made 5-of-8 free throws in the final minute of the game.
• West Liberty shot 18-of-54 (33.3%) from the field, 7-of-22 (31.8%) from 3-point range, and 26-of-32 (81.3%) from the free throw line compared to 24-of-61 (39.3%) from the field, 4-of-8 (50.0%) from 3-point range, and 20-of-28 (71.4%) from the free throw line for Edinboro.
• The Fighting Scots won the battle on the boards 43-34 and converted 22 Edinboro turnovers into 20 points. The Black & Gold also held a 23-14 advantage in fast break points and assisted on 15 of 18 made baskets.
• Riccardo posted career-highs in points and rebounds in the game, notching 15 points and 8 rebounds to lead WLU.

WEST LIBERTY STATISTICAL LEADERS
Jenna Riccardo: 15 points, 5-of-6 field goals, 8 rebounds
Karly McCutcheon: 14 points, 6-of-6 free throws, 3 rebounds, 3 blocks
Corinne Thomas: 13 points, 3-of-6 3-pointers, 3 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals
 
POST GAME QUOTES
"You gotta give hats off to Edinboro," stated head coach Kyle Cooper. "We knew they were gonna come in here, they're a blue collar program, they're led by a blue collar coach and some veterans that just know what it takes to win, and they did out tough us a lot tonight. So obviously that's something that we're going to grow from, and don't get me wrong we threw our fair share of punches, and we found a way to make it very, very interesting down the stretch, but against a blue collar, hard nosed program like that it is very hard to play uphill and we had to play uphill the entire, basically second half. So, when you dig a hole like that it is very, very hard to get back in a game. Again, hats off to our players because we fought, we continued to fight, we executed a bunch of stuff down the stretch to get the looks we needed, we hit some big time shots because we have big time players. But we have to learn from this and it starts with me as the leader of this program and trickles all the way down to the players that we will get better from this and this won't happen again to us."
 
UP NEXT
West Liberty will stay on the hilltop for their third consecutive home game to open the 2023-24 season as they host Kentucky State on Wednesday evening. The Hilltoppers and Thorobreds are set for a 5:30 p.m. tipoff inside the ASRC.