— By Duane Cochran & Bryan Dillon, For Mountain East.org
FAIRMONT STATE 80, Frostburg State 77: Basketball fans were treated to a gem Friday afternoon in the quarterfinals of the annual men’s Mountain East Conference Tournament at WesBanco Arena.
Second-seeded Fairmont State rallied from a nine-point deficit in the game’s final 10:43 to record a thrilling victory over seventh-seeded Frostburg State in a contest which wasn’t decided until the final two seconds.
The win, Fairmont’s fifth in a row and its 16th in its last 17 games, improved the Falcons to 25-4 and puts them in Saturday’s 8:30 p.m. semifinals against sixth-seeded Concord (15-14).
Frostburg, meanwhile, finished its season at 15-15. It marks the first time since 2011-12 that the Bobcats didn’t have a losing season.
Trailing 79-77 with 11.4 seconds to play Frostburg was forced to foul Fairmont’s top free throw shooter Tyheil Peterson. Peterson, an 84 percent foul shooter who had just drained a pair of free throws, couldn’t get the front end of his one-and-one to fall and the Bobcats cleared the rebound, got the ball into the front court and called timeout with five seconds to play.
On the ensuing possession, Frostburg got the ball into the hands of MEC Player of the Year Trey Simmons, who had 22 points, including 17 in the second half. The speedy Simmons drove on Fairmont’s Zycheus Dobbs and attempted a scooping layup with two seconds remaining. Dobbs, however, held his ground and the shot attempt fell short, hitting the side of the rim and was rebounded by the Falcons’ Joey Brown who was fouled with 0.7 seconds left to play.
Brown then hit the front end of his one-and-one but was off the mark on his second and time ran out as Frostburg’s Kyle Whippen cleared the rebound and launched a full court shot which was wide left of the backboard.
“I got my number called in the huddle and once I got it I knew I had to go right to the rim and do what I’ve been doing all season,” Simmons said. “As soon as I got to the rim it was just a little bit short and that was it.”
Fairmont had recorded a pair of double-digit wins over the Bobcats during the regular season, but knew Friday that Frostburg would be a tough out.
“Frostburg State played really, really well today,” Fairmont coach Tim Koenig said. “They gave a really good team effort.
“I thought we played pretty well too, but didn’t make some shots that normally go in for us. I thought our resiliency, though, was fantastic today. We didn’t panic when shots weren’t falling and things weren’t going our way. That was a key. That was a really good win for us. Any win in a tournament is a good one.”
CONCORD 96, Wheeling 71: Boubacar Djigo may have won the Mountain East Conference’s Defensive Player of the Year this season, but Friday afternoon, it was his offense which took center stage and helped pave the way for sixth-seeded Concord to roll to an impressive victory over third-seeded Wheeling in the quarterfinals of the MEC Men’s Basketball Tournament.
The athletic 6-8 junior forward grabbed a game-high 16 rebounds and scored a game-high 24 points, 12 of which came off an assortment of high-flying, crowd-pleasing dunks as the Mountain Lions raced to a 10-point lead less than nine minutes into the game and never looked back.
“I’d say offensively I did pretty well today,” said Djigo with a slight laugh. “My teammates trust me. They’re not afraid to throw me the ball or throw me the occasional alley-oop pass because they know usually I can go up and get it.
“Today, yeah it was pretty fun. As a team we got things going and just kinda played off each other.”
Wheeling coach Chris Richardson said Friday Djigo was, without question, the best player on the floor.
“Djigo was incredible today,” Richardson said. “I thought he was dominant on both ends. He was the best player on the floor today no doubt.”
The win improved Concord to 15-14 on the year and puts the Mountain Lions in Saturday’s semifinals against second-seeded Fairmont State at 8:30 p.m. Concord and FSU split their regular-season series.
Djigo wasn’t the only effective weapon on offense Concord employed Friday. Savier McCall chipped in 15 points, Anfernee Hanna and Brendan Hoffman added 11 apiece and Josiah Rickards scored 12 — all of which came in the first eight minutes of the contest as the Mountain Lions gained firm control.
“This game was really personal for us,” Rickards said. “The last time we played them we played them at home and they got the best of us that time. Today we were really locked in and focused and it showed in our play with the way we started and finished.”
WEST LIBERTY 84, Davis & Elkins 74: Top-seeded West Liberty flexed its muscle in the lane and on the boards to defeat eighth-seeded Davis & Elkins in the quarterfinals of the Mountain East Conference tournament presented by The Health Plan.
After averaging 106 points per game in the two regular-season meetings against the Senators, West Liberty (25-4) had to rely more on its defense and rebounding in this matchup. With the victory, the Hilltoppers earned their 13th appearance in the semifinals of the MEC tournament all-time, having appeared in the semifinals every year in the league tournament’s history.
Offensive rebounding and turnovers played the pivotal role on the evening for West Liberty as they forced Davis & Elkins into 25 turnovers, which were converted into 26 points. The Hilltoppers also pulled down 26 offensive rebounds, which resulted in 24 second-chance points.
“That was a classic March Madness game,” asserted West Liberty Head Coach Michael Lamberti. “ It was physical as can be, and it went back and forth with a lot of lead changes. I thought we got off a good start … We executed on the offensive end late in the second half and forced a couple of turnovers with our press and finally made some free throws down the stretch to hold on to for the win.”
Davis & Elkins (10-20) finished the game with better shooting numbers than West Liberty. The Senators shot 42.6 percent from the field, 42.9 percent from three, and 82.6 percent from the foul line, while the Hilltoppers shot 37.5 percent from the field, 20 percent from three, and 63.6 percent from the foul line. WLU was able to overcome the shooting disparity by finishing the game with 26 more shots than D&E.
West Liberty placed four players in double-digits: Jamie Muldowney (19), Myles Montgomery (15), Peter Lattos (14), and Hayden Abdullah (11). Muldowney and Lattos led the team with 9 rebounds each. Davis & Elkins also had four players score over ten points. Matthew Gray (18), Nnadozie Okoroji (16), Vegas Evans (12), and Darrius Roach (10).
GLENVILLE STATE 79, Charleston 76: A wire-to-wire effort led fifth-seeded Glenville State past fourth-seeded Charleston in the quarterfinals of the Mountain East Conference tournament presented by The Health Plan Friday evening at WesBanco Arena.
Glenville State (18-12) raced out to an early lead and never trailed en route to its 5th semifinal appearance in the MEC tournament. The Pioneers’ defense held Charleston (19-9) to just 23 points in the first half, their lowest of the season, on 8-of-30 shooting and a field goal percentage of 26.7.
“The first half was probably the best defensive effort we had this year,” said Glenville State head coach Bob Bolen. “We knew that they were the number one three-point percentage shooting team in the country, and I thought our defense did a good job holding them. I think a lot of it came down to our defensive pressure … I thought it was a tremendous job defensively.”
Each member of the starting lineup for Glenville State finished with double-digits offensively and accounted for all of the scoring output for the Pioneers. Elijah Redfern led the way with a team-high 23 points, while Don Colon-Lewis added 18 points. Prince Mosengo pitched in with a 12-point and 11-rebound double-double.
Charleston’s Braden Chapman led all scorers with 27 points. Thomas Hailey (15) and Ben Nicol (11) joined Chapman in double-digits. Matthew Shelton led the Golden Eagles in rebounding with nine rebounds on the night.
While Charleston looked to find its shooting stroke, Glenville State jumped out to a 19-6 lead with 12:45 remaining in the half following a 10-0 scoring run led by Redfern and Mosengo. After a 12-1 stretch, the Pioneers held their largest lead of the half at 33-13 with 4:31 to play in the half.
Charleston set up the opportunity to attempt a comeback in the second half by closing out the first half on an 8-0 run thanks to a three from Chapman and a driving layup and three from Nicol to close the deficit to 36-23 at the break. The 8-0 run helped break a stretch of 11 missed shots for the Golden Eagles.
The second half started with the teams trading the first six baskets, before Glenville State took advantage of an 8-0 spurt to grab their largest lead of the game at 21 points, 51-30. From that point, Charleston started to chip away at the lead, thanks in part to a pair of 8-0 runs. The second of which cut the Pioneers’ lead to 60-54 following a three-pointer from Matthew Shelton.
The Golden Eagles continued to cut into the lead, getting it as low as four points when Braden Chapman hit a three with 12 seconds remaining. Two free throws extended the lead for Glenville State back to six points, which limited the impact of Charleston’s three-pointer at the final horn.
Glenville State finished the game shooting 44.1 percent from the field on 26-of-59 shooting and 39.3 percent from long distance. Charleston recovered from their difficult shooting first half, by shooting 60.7 percent from the field and 56.3 percent from three in the second half. The Golden Eagles finished the game 43.1 percent from the field. The foul line was a big difference, with the GSU shooting 80 percent from the foul line, while UC shot only 56.5 at the charity stripe on 23 attempts.
“I was proud of our guys for fighting until the end, it says a lot about our guys,” stated Charleston head coach James Long. “It was not our night offensively in every regard; at the rim, from three, and free throws. I thought our team fought so I am really proud of them … I think the big number is 10 missed free throws and 13 offensive rebounds for them.”