WHEELING — For the third time this season, cross-county rivals West Liberty and Wheeling Jesuit will square off in men’s basketball.

The Cardinals and Hilltoppers will tip off this evening at 6 at WesBanco Arena for a Mountain East Conference quarterfinal matchup.

West Liberty won the previous two meetings this season with a 118-74 stomping on its home floor at the Academic Sports & Recreational Complex on Jan. 26. In the second matchup just six days ago, the Hilltoppers saw a much-improved Cardinals team, but ran away with a 96-85 victory at the Alma Grace McDonough Center.

“Truthfully it’s not ideal,” West Liberty coach Ben Howlett said about playing their rival for a third time. “You never want to play your rival three times, especially when you beaten them twice already.

It goes back to the old saying, ‘It’s really tough to beat a good team three times.’ I think Wheeling Jesuit is playing at an extremely high level right now. Obviously, they’ve won a lot of games recently and defeated West Virginia Wesleyan (Wednesday) pretty convincingly. We’ll have our hands full.”

The third matchup, which will take place on a neutral court, has Wheeling Jesuit coach John Peckinpaugh excited. His Cardinals made it to the quarterfinals of the MEC Tournament after defeating West Virginia Wesleyan, 66-48 on Wednesday.

“We’ll have a great atmosphere,” Peckinpaugh said. “We’ll have a ton of fans there. Their fans travel really well, but I think it’ll be pretty cool, not only for us, but for Wheeling and the MEC for us to play in the quarterfinals. It should be a fun atmosphere. I know I’m excited for it.”

In the second matchup, the Hilltoppers and Cardinals were neck-and-neck for the majority of the game. Late in the second half, though, West Liberty did what they’re known for — tire teams out and take advantage. With that, the Hilltoppers were able to gas the Cardinals and go up by as many as 21 points.

“That’s what they do to people,” Peckinpaugh said about the Hilltoppers. “They just keep coming at you. They withstand your runs, keep subbing five in and five out and wear you down. Six freshman and a senior, we just ran out of gas. I felt like we had some mental mistakes in that period of time where they pushed the lead back to 20 and we couldn’t get back over it.

“If we do a better job of handling the pressure, handling the ball and not just giving them 26 points on turnovers, we’ll be in good shape.”

Dalton Bolon leads the way for the Hilltoppers as he is averaging just under 22 points per game (21.7) while Will Yoakum, the MEC Freshman of the Year, averages over 14 a contest (14.5).

Another freshman, Yahel Hill pours more than 13 points (13.6) per contest and Eric Meininger nets over 12 (12.6) while also averaging 7.7 rebounds.

Both Bolon and Meininger were named first team All-MEC.

“I think it’s going to be fun,” Howlett said about playing at WesBanco Arena. “We took the team there last night to watch their play-in game with Wheeling and Wesleyan just to kind of get our guys familiar with the arena and the surroundings. I think it’s going to be really fun. I think both schools are going to be represented well with their fan bases and we’re looking forward to playing.”

DenAndre Robinson and Franck Kamgain both tally just under 15 points (14.8) per contest for Wheeling Jesuit while Tariq Woody (12.8), Brendan Hoban (12.4) and Steve Cannady (12) round out the double figure scorers.

Going into the game, the Hilltoppers will have been on a six-day break from playing. The Cardinals will be on a one-day break. While some may see advantages both ways — Hilltoppers with the long break and Cardinals having a feel for the court — Peckinpaugh doesn’t believe in the feel for the court advantage.

“I don’t know if either one of us will have an advantage, if they have anything over us,” Peckinpaugh said. “The good thing about playing West Virginia Wesleyan was that it was slow-paced. There were only 54 or so possessions whereas we’re about to see a game that if we let them play the way they play, it’s going to be in the 90s. If we do a good job of controlling the pace of the game, I think our guys will be fine. It’s always nice to have that seven-day break in between a game like this and having time to prepare.”

Added Howlett: “I think this point in the year we’ve played 27 games, so it’s not like we don’t know what we’re doing at this point. We’ve got five seniors on the team and they’re not going to let these younger guys that haven’t played in a conference tournament kind of think this is any ordinary game.”

“This is win or go home now. We have to be ready to play. We get a shootaround (this morning). We’ll obviously take that, shoot on the hoops and hopefully get a feel for the court.”