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Men’s Basketball: West Liberty, Fairmont State Advance to Finals

OVATHLETICS.COM STAFF by OVATHLETICS.COM STAFF
March 5, 2023
Reading Time: 6 mins read
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Men’s Basketball: West Liberty, Fairmont State Advance to Finals

Photo courtesy of Robert Ovies

#1 West Liberty def. #5 Notre Dame, 96-75 | Box Score
By Shawn Rine for MountainEast.org

WHEELING – The more things change, the more they stay the same. For the fifth straight season, the West Liberty men will play for a Mountain East Conference Tournament championship.

Player of the year Bryce Butler recorded another double-double with 22 points, 16 rebounds, four assists and four steals as the top-seeded and No. 5-ranked Hilltoppers (27-3) pulled away from a pesky Notre Dame (17-13) team that came in as the fifth seed, in a semifinal matchup Saturday night at WesBanco Arena. Coach Ben Howlett is seeking his third title, while his team is looking to become the first in conference history to claim back-to-back crowns.

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“I’m very pleased with this victory,” Howlett said. “I’ve said several times that Notre Dame is a team that nobody ever talks about, but is dangerous.

“You look at their starters’ minutes and I think we wore them out. It took a little longer than usual, but in the end we got the job done.”

In a manner of speaking, it was Butler that wore out the Falcons. He scored inside, he scored outside, and he tallied at the free-throw line. Never flashy, the Latrobe, Pa., native once again delivered.

“He’s the ultimate team guy,” Howlett raved. “As far as the all-time greats (at West Liberty), who’s better?

“There might be someone, but I don’t know.”

Count Notre Dame coach Mark Richmond among the Butler believers.

“He’s a really consistent player,” Richmond said. “He’s a guy that understands what he’s good at and does that – doesn’t try to do more and stays within himself.

“He competes every minute and his effort and energy is contagious for them. He’s the reason they are really, really good.”

Butler’s not a one-man show, however. Once more he had plenty of help and the Hilltoppers needed everyone against a Falcons team that for the longest time refused to go away.

As usual, WLU did the majority of its damage in spurts – or as they’ve been coined on the hilltop, “blackouts.” Each time NDC made things interesting, an onslaught ensued.

Like for instance during the first half, when Tyland Crawford scored two of his 17 points to bring Notre Dame within 29-26. West Liberty, behind 3s from Steve Cannady and Zach Rasile, ran off the next 10 points and finished the half on a 17-6 run for a 46-32 advantage.

“It’s easy (for the game) to get away from you,” Richmond said. “They’re a team of runs and what it is, is an accumulation of those runs.”

The Falcons had one more push-back in them out of the half. WLU’s Ben Sarson scored the first basket, but the Hilltoppers went scoreless for the next 4:20 and Notre Dame reeled off 10 straight points including all five of Obinna Ugwuakazi’s, to trim the margin to six at 48-42.

As it turns out, that was pretty much the last gasp. The next eight points belonged to West Liberty to push it back out to a comfortable 14-point bulge.

“It would be good,” Howlett understated of winning a second straight championship. “Here’s what I know: these guys put in an incredible amount of work.

“What I love about this group is, it’s guys that don’t care about points and stats – they care about winning.

“People expect you to go out and win every night, but winning is hard.”

Sarson backed Butler with 14 points while Malik McKinney tossed in 13 and Cannady and Rasile evenly divided 22 as part of five Hilltoppers in double figures.

Jaedon Willis led the way for Notre Dame with a team-high 20 points. DeAirius Barker added 16.

Photo courtesy of Robert Ovies

#2 Fairmont State def. #6 Davis & Elkins, 76-65 | Box Score
By Duane Cochran for MountainEast.org

WHEELING – The old adage survive and advance was never more fitting than it was for second-seeded Fairmont State here Saturday evening against sixth-seeded Davis & Elkins in the semifinals of annual men’s Mountain East Conference Basketball Tournament at WesBanco Arena.

In a game which wasn’t pretty, the Falcons did just enough to hold off the much-improved Senators and record a 76-65 victory earning themselves a spot in Sunday’s 5 p.m. championship game against top-seeded and regular-season MEC champion West Liberty.

FSU brings a 24-6 record into the contest. The Hilltoppers are 27-3. Sunday will be Fairmont’s third appearance in the MEC championship game. The Falcons won the 2021 tournament.

“It was a great win for us,” Fairmont coach Tim Koenig said. “Congratulations to D&E on a historic season. They have a helluva program.

“We went 5-of-26 from three and that’s not exactly a masterpiece, but we scrapped, clawed and figured out some things on the glass. We got 17 offensive rebounds and that’s going to happen when you miss a lot of shots. I’m really proud of our defense and we did a lot better job of taking care of the ball in the second half.

“They just don’t hand out championships. It’s so hard to get here. These guys have worked so many hours and faced and overcome adversity. We feel very fortunate to get a chance to play tomorrow. We know how good they are. We need to play well.”

The five made 3-point field goals for the Falcons were a season-low.

Saturday night’s semifinal between the Falcons and Senators was an old-fashioned defensive slugfest. Neither team could get separation and both were looking for something or someone to spark themselves late.

For FSU that someone was senior center Seth Younkin. Younkin, who averages just three points a game this season, entered the contest with Fairmont leading 51-46 and over the course of a four-minute span reeled off seven points, handed out an assist on a basket and pulled down three of his four rebounds. As a result, FSU went on a 17-8 run to open its biggest lead at 68-54 with just 4:13 remaining.

“The game was kinda stagnant and I had sat for a pretty good amount of time so I had some energy going in there,” said Younkin. “I kinda got away from the high-post flash and just played down low and tried to use my strength to try to rebound and finish. Zay (Isaiah Sanders) always tells me to be a monster on the glass. That motivates me. That’s pretty much what happened tonight.”

D&E coach Daniel Mondragon agrees that Younkin was a difference maker for the Falcons in the waning minutes.

“That’s what great, experienced teams do,” Mondragon said. “They have guys who step up. Look at (Zyon) Dobbs last night and what he did for them against Glenville. Tonight that was Younkin for them. He might not be a great scorer, but he knows who he is and what his role is and he impacts the game at a high level. He did that tonight in a crucial situation with a couple of offensive rebounds and a couple of stick backs.”

D&E tried to rally back, but Fairmont, the league’s leading free throw team, made 8-of-10 in the final 1:21 of the contest to hold off the Senators.

“Making our free throws at the end of the game was a good thing and helped us seal this one,” said FSU’s Sanders, who led the Falcons with 19 points and eight rebounds. “There’s been times this season when we haven’t done that, but in March at tournament time it’s a good time for us to start making them.”

Fairmont placed four players in double figures in the win. The Falcons also got 13 points and a team-high 10 rebounds from Zyon Dobbs and 11 points from both George Mangas and Fonz Hale. The double-double for Dobbs was his second of the tournament.

D&E, which finished 19-11, saw its modest five-game winning streak come to an end with the loss. The Senators came into the tournament as the second-hottest team in the conference behind West Liberty.

“At one point we were 13-12 this season and we needed one win to make some school history,” said the Senators’ Sam Rolle IV, who led his team with 18 points, four assists and three steals. “Once we got that win it was like a lot of pressure lifted off of our backs and we started playing with more and more confidence. We had said we wanted to win out and come into this tournament with a lot of confidence and that’s what we did.

“In the Charleston game we were confident and we played free and didn’t let the big stage affect us. Unfortunately today it got the best of us, but it’s okay. We’ll be back.”

D&E also got 17 points and nine rebounds from Vadim Clanet and eight points and a game-high 12 rebounds from Breland Walton.

Photo courtesy of Robert Ovies
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OVATHLETICS.COM STAFF

OVATHLETICS.COM STAFF

This article was a provided public press release from one of our affiliate publications and/or schools.

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