With more than 2,000 points in her West Liberty women's basketball career, senior guard Liz Flowers obviously knows how to score. The Hilltoppers needed - and got - that talent Saturday afternoon.
Flowers poured in 34 points, the lone aberration in a defense-heavy game, to lead No. 17 West Liberty to a 53-40 win over Fairmont State in the Mountain East Conference tournament semifinals at the Charleston Civic Center.
The Hilltoppers (27-3), the No. 1 seed in the tournament, will play for the tournament championship against No. 2 seed Wheeling Jesuit (25-5) at 1 p.m. Sunday.
Flowers made 12 of WLU's 21 field goals and five of West Liberty's six 3-pointers, and carried the Hilltoppers to a lead in the second quarter they would not relinquish. Down 11-8 with 2:47 to go in the first quarter, Flowers scored 11 of West Liberty's next 22 points. When she wasn't knifing through the lane, scooping in layups, she was hitting 3-pointers.
"She's kind of a freak of nature athletically," West Liberty coach Lynn Ullom said. "She's a great combination of speed and power, so she doesn't get knocked off her drive."
Flowers, who was seventh in Division II entering Saturday with 94 made 3-pointers, said she has become more of a shooter in her final season and hadn't used her driving ability as much. But when the opportunities presented themselves against Fairmont State (20-11), she wasn't turning them down.
"We were kind of stagnant and we just needed someone to hit seams," she said. "When I hit the seam, no one would come at me, or if they came at me, Kiki [Simpson] would be open on the block."
Simpson, the MEC women's player of the year, scored just six points on 3-of-11 shooting versus the Falcons, but pulled down 16 rebounds and blocked six shots. Outside of Flowers' monster offensive game, defense ruled the day between the Hilltoppers and Falcons. Both teams shot 33.3 percent from the floor, Fairmont State finishing 16 of 48 and West Liberty finishing 21 of 63. The two teams combined to shoot 9 of 40 from 3-point range - 3 of 12 for FSU and 6 of 28 for WLU.
Fairmont State coach Steve McDonald figured his team's defensive performance would be good enough to punch a ticket into the title game.
"If you'd have told me before the game we'd hold them to 53 points, I would say we'd win by 10 or 15," he said. "[West Liberty] played such good defense, that dictated the game."
Flowers, on top of her scoring, spent the game guarding FSU's Emily Puskarich, who finished her quarterfinal game versus Glenville State with 21 points and one turnover. On Saturday, she went 0 for 10 from the floor with five turnovers.
The Falcons finished with a trio of double-digit scorers - Katie Nunan with 16 points, Amanda Ruffner with 12 points and Deidra Combs with 10 points. Flowers added eight rebounds for West Liberty and Kailee Howe scored six points with nine rebounds and six assists.
After facing West Liberty three times this season, McDonald said the Hilltoppers were going to be a difficult adversary for anyone who played them this postseason.
"I told Lynn [Friday] that this was his best team that I've seen in the 16 years I've been here," McDonald said. "This is a game that has the word 'team' in it, and this is the best team I've seen."
Ullom doesn't like comparing different teams from different years, but said there are factors that makes this edition of the West Liberty women's team very special.
"We are more versatile than we've ever been, I do believe that," Ullom said. "And when we guard people like we did today, we're as good as any team in the country."
Northern panhandle rivals West Liberty and Wheeling Jesuit met twice during the MEC regular season, with the Hilltoppers winning both times - 69-64 on Jan. 21 in Wheeling and 69-50 Feb. 27 at West Liberty.