Glenville St. Three-Peats MEC Crown
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WHEELING -- Another year, another championship. Glenville State came into this year's Mountain East Conference Tournament, not only as the top seed, but also the two-time defending champion. It took every ounce of the Pioneers' effort, but they secured the three-peat. Down by as many as 12 points, Glenville State clawed back and a fourth quarter spurt game them it an 80-75 victory over Notre Dame College Sunday afternoon at WesBanco Arena.
"It was a great and Notre Dame is a phenomenal team," Glenville State coach Kim Stephens said. "They came out ready and hungry. It took us a while to adjust to that, but for two straight games, I thought we did a very good job of not hitting the panic button and that's when our experience came into play. We just kept doing what we do and it worked out."
With 5:10 left in the second quarter, Seina Adachi hit a pair of free throws to give the Falcons their largest lead of the day, 35-23. Notre Dame started the second quarter on a 7-3 run to secure the lead. Although, the Pioneers managed a 7-0 spurt, Theresa Parr's only basket of the game with 23 seconds left in the first half gave the Falcons a 39-33 advantage at halftime.
"They just played harder. It's Sunday and championship day. It's never going to be a blowout. Ever," Stephens said. "They went more zone on us and it took us a while to get adjusted to the zone, but at this time you're not going to get blowouts because everything is on the line."
Slowly, but surely the Pioneers trimmed its deficit, but couldn't jump ahead. Glenville State scored the final five points of the third quarter, to trail 55-54.
It finally broke through in the fourth. Trailing 62-60 after a Adachi basket, the Pioneers went on a 9-0 run to take the lead that they would not relinquish. Zakiyah Winfield tied the game at 62-62 with a basket with 6:29 left. Just over a minute later, Emily Stoller sparked the Glenville faithful with a something that she does best. The sharpshooter drilled 3-pointer while also capping the spurt with a bucket to put the score at 69-62 with 4:21 remaining.
Stoller finished the contest tied for a game-high 19 points. She went 4 of 6 from behind the arc to capture the MEC Tournament MVP award. Re'Shawna Stone was also named to the All-MEC Tournament team for the Pioneers.
"I get all the credit to my teammates. They hyped me up and kept my head in the game. When I hit a 3-pointer, Z (Zakiyah Winfield), especially helped me and I want to give the credit to all my teammates."
In it's largest deficit of the game, the Falcons did not call it quits as it was able to trim it to two on a pair of occasions. However, the Pioneers always had a response.
Jennifer Oduho and Jada Marone both tallied 19 points for the Falcons while Adachi had 14 points. Jessie Stout supplied 10 points.
Adachi and Marone were also named to the All-MEC Tournament team with Adachi receiving the Heart and Hustle Award.
"It was a tough game. We played with heart from the beginning," Notre Dame coach Lauren Macer said. "A couple of possessions led to an unfortunate loss for us. But, I'm proud of the team. We believe in each other and they didn't give up until the final buzzer sounded. It was a good game. We just came up short."
Ty Armstrong was also solid for the Pioneers as she poured in 18 points while Winfield contributed with 15.
Both the Falcons and Pioneers will continue their season as both will advance to the NCAA tournament.
"This one is going to hurt, but we do have to find a way to bounce back and learn from it. We're going to face some tough teams in this next tournament," Macer said. "It's the first time we've done it, so I definitely think we're going to have some energy moving forward and making sure to take advantage of that opportunity they earned this year."
Also named to the all-tournament team were Wheeling's Lilly Ritz, Urbana's Sylvia Hudson, Charleston's Anna Hayton and Concord's Madison May and Riley Fitzwater.