The Mountain East Conference is whole once again. Alderson Broaddus University and the MEC announced Friday afternoon that the Battlers were leaving the Great Midwest Athletic Conference and joining the MEC effective July 1. This marks the second time a member of the former West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference has left the G-MAC to return its former WVIAC member institutions in the MEC. “Alderson Broaddus emerged through the membership process as an outstanding candidate due to the shared philosophy, goals, sports sponsorship, and geography with our member institutions,” MEC Commissioner Reid Amos said. “AB has a proud and rich tradition in athletics that we expect will continue as a member of the Mountain East. I want to thank President Dr. Tim Barry and Athletics Director Carrie Bodkins for their leadership and look forward to collaborating and working with them and the rest of the AB athletics department.” The Battlers fill the hole created when Urbana closed its doors. West Liberty Athletics Director Lynn Ullom is happy to see the Battlers rejoin the fold. The longtime women’s basketball head coach had many a memorable contest coaching against A-B and knows the teams’ historical ties make this a great fit. “I think they will be a really good fit,” Ullom said. “They check all the boxes are far as geographically, they are similar in size to some of the other private schools in the conference and we are thrilled to have them back. “I have many wonderful memories of some incredible contests against AB in multiple sports, whether as a coach or watching. I always enjoyed competing against them and I’m excited to do so again.”

Given the reduction of the maximum number of games, there's a chance the inclusion of AB will have the MEC playing a conference only 22-game schedule in basketball. That has yet to be determined by MEC officials according to commissioner Reid Amos.

Joining Right Away

The recent decision by the NCAA to reduce the minimum and maximum number of games for each sport for the calendar year created a unique opportunity for Alderson Broaddus to enter MEC play right away. Athletics departments were already scrambling to adjust schedules to accommodate the changes. Urbana’s departure left the remaining MEC football teams with nine conference games in a 11-game schedule. The NCAA one-year limit changed that total to 10. Now with 11 football-playing conference members again, MEC teams can likely play and all-conference schedule. “Nationwide, with the circumstances we’re facing in NCAA Division II, it’ll be an unusual year in a lot of ways,” Amos said. “A lot of conferences made the shift to conference-only play and AB has the ability to fold very cleanly into our conference schedule. “AB expressed an interest and a willingness to make that transition immediately.” That’s West Liberty’s plan. Ullom noted that the Battlers will take the spot of Ohio Dominican as the football team’s home and season opener. “AB has been able to field a competitive team in a short amount of time,” Ullom said. “And ironically, that will be our first game (of the season) and it’s the first time we’ve ever played them in this sport.”

Better Geographic Fit

Amos mentioned the average one-way trip for conference opponents reduced to 148 miles with AB in the mix. That amounts to huge cost savings for the Battlers’ athletic department. Length trips to Kentucky and Tennessee, in addition to constant treks to Ohio for conference play tend to wear on the budget. “Our men’s basketball team would travel Wednesday through Saturday so we were taking four-day trips there,” Bodkins said. “So there is extensive savings. Football will be the same way and we will minimize our overnight trips with football. It impacts us across the board.” Rivalries also can be renewed. There are three schools—Davis & Elkins, Fairmont State and Glenville State—within less than 100 miles driving distance. The trip to Elkins is roughly a half-hour. As pointed out in a May 23 story on LedeNews.com, AB’s location and fielding of a football team made the Battlers the most likely candidate. AB does check all the boxes, save for one, that the MEC was looking to fill the vacancy.

With the newly created opening in the G-MAC, will Notre Dame, now the lone member of the MEC in Ohio, jump and join its fellow Buckeye-State Private Institutions and, much like AB, save itself considerable travel expense?

One Potential Downfall

The coronavirus pandemic hit colleges and universities where it hurts the most—in the pocketbook. From Division-I schools on down, there is ample pain to go around. The NCAA recently made a move to help ease that pain, at least as far as athletic department budgets are concerned. A key vote by the Division II President’s Council reduced not only the minimum number of game’s a team needed to play, but also the maximum. That number varies by sport, but it was done in effort to help reduce costs for member institutions. “The financial challenges faced by institutions because of COVID-19 are considerable, and, as we prepare for summer and fall, they continue to increase,” said Sandra Jordan, chancellor of South Carolina Aiken and chair of the Division II Presidents Council. “The approved reductions strike an important balance in providing schools with scheduling flexibility, maintaining competitive equity within the one-year reductions to minimums and maximums, and continuing to prioritize opportunities for student-athletes to compete in NCAA championships.” The reduction lasts for just the 2020-21 school year and will return to regular min and max levels for 2021-22.

Men's and women's soccer has been reduced to 14 games during the regular season. For Wheeling,, both teams have 14 conference games, so the Cardinals need only drop the non-conference games.

Uniquely Situated

The NCAA’s max numbers for various sports seem an effort to allow schools to trim all or a large portion of their non-conference schedule. Basketball, for instance, now has a maximum of 22 games. The Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference already plays a 22-game conference schedule, meaning adjusting those schedules is easy. Lop the non-conference games off the top, and be done. Easy-peasy. Football schedules were dropped from an 11-game max to 10. Because the closure of Urbana left a hole in the schedules of fellow Mountain East Conference members, in theory, nothing additional was needed. Only West Liberty, which worked quickly to fill that hole by adding a home date with G-MAC member Ohio Dominican, will need to drop one game from its slate. Most likely, the game that will be removed is the Sept. 3 home opener against Walsh. That game is the back end of a home-and-home contract. “I think because of the way the schedule falls, we’ll keep Ohio Dominican and drop the Walsh game,” West Liberty Athletics Director Lynn Ullom said. “But it’s not as simple as choosing one game, as they may have another game they want to keep instead.” ODU may have to keep WLU. The Panthers have four non-conference games on the schedule: a home date with Shepherd and road matchups at West Liberty, Ashland (G-MAC member starting in 2021) and Northern Michigan. One of those has to go, and unfortunately for ODU, it will likely be Shepherd. The Rams are members of the PSAC which already plays a 10-game conference schedule. The outlier is the Sept. 3 trip to Columbus to take on the Panthers. Which one do you think the Shepherd athletic department is angling to drop?

Wheeling University and other basketball teams in the MEC will play a 20-game conference schedule, leaving room for only two non-conference games.

Plusses and Minuses

The good news is sports, such a large fixture of Division II life, are returning. But the reduced capacity is limiting the experience somewhat for the thousands of athletes, a fact not lost on Ullom. “We don’t have to go out and find games, so there’s no headache aspect to it,” Ullom said. “But I’m a little sad and disappointed for the athletes. As a player or a coach, you want that competition, and I hate to see there are lost opportunities to compete.” Ullom knows that the pandemic placed added stress on budgets,nni and a majority of the games is a far better option than say half, or even none. Some colleges were forced to eliminate athletic programs entirely. Appalachian State recently announced having to cut its men’s soccer, tennis, and indoor track & field teams. It’s not the first institution to make such an announcement and likely won’t be the last. For programs that survive the fiscal axe, things are starting to improve. With more and more aspects of life once taken for granted being “reopened,” the crawl back to normalcy is quickening its pace. “On one hand, it’s disappointing, but on the other, we’re anxious to get all of the students around the country back to school,” said Wheeling University women’s basketball coach Mike Llanas. “Now that we are out and restaurants are open, more and more people are going out every day, and hopefully it keeps moving in a positive direction.” “But we’re excited to get (the students) back in the fall and return to academics and athletics.”

The Division II cross country teams will be limited to six events

Reduction Breakdown

Urbana University’s closing put the Mountain East Conference into search mode. Ashland University’s joining of the Great Midwest Athletic Conference (G-MAC) may turn that search into salvage. No, the MEC is not in danger. The conference is still 11 members strong, and while football may have brought it together, basketball is the feather in its cap. But league commissioner Reid Amos stated previously to post-Urbana's closure that an Ohio presence is paramount to the conference’s plans. “An Ohio presence for our conference is something that we value greatly. To lose Urbana University is saddening to all of us, but it’s the reality of the impact that this pandemic is having economically,” Amos said in an earlier interview with WBOY in Clarksburg. Amos declined an interview request for this story, but MEC Senior Associate Commissioner for Communications, Adam Zundell, noted that, “At this time, the league doesn’t have a comment on membership or potential members.” Ashland may or may not have been at the top of the MEC wish list, but its exodus from the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference for the G-MAC will have a ripple effect. Two members schools from Ohio gave the MEC a solid foothold in the Buckeye State. One? Well, it’s more like a toehold. And it’s slipping. Notre Dame now stands with Central State University as the only two Division II programs in Ohio not joined with the G-MAC. What’s between the town of South Euclid and Ohio County, where the two closest members MEC members are found? Six G-MACs schools in closer proximity. Google maps has West Liberty 144 miles apart and Wheeling 149. The G-MAC has six schools at 107 miles or less, but four total are shorter than three-hour trips. In the MEC that number dwindles to two.

Why Ashland Would Have Worked

The GLIAC is one of the top conferences in Division II, and Ashland played a significant role in that. The women’s basketball team has two national titles to its credit and was on its way to a third this season before the coronavirus wrecked the party. The Eagles at one point finished in the Top 10 of the Director’s Cup standings for all of Division II for eight consecutive school years, including second in 2014-15. Ashland knows how to win. It was content in the GLIAC. But travel costs and athletic department budgets are under increased scrutiny during the pandemic, and that isn’t going to change anytime soon. Distance and basketball strength could have made the MEC a worthwhile opportunity. The GLIAC is comprised mostly of Michigan schools. Ashland’s average round-trip trek for road games in the GLIAC was 730.9 miles (11 schools, total of 8040 miles for one back-and-forth trip each). In the MEC, that number dropped to 538.4 and that’s including UNC-Pembroke. The MEC had three one-way trips fewer than 150 miles. The shortest drive in the GLIAC was 151 to Wayne State in Detroit. The 319-mile one-way trip to Concord was still better than five of the GLIAC’s lengthiest trips. But while the MEC’s travel upgrade was a sizable discount, it pales in comparison to that of the G-MAC, with eight members schools within a “day-trip” driving radius. That’s a major cost savings in the travel budget. Also, once spectators can return post-social distancing, proximity will allow visiting fan bases to travel and should increase game attendance. 

Why Ashland to the G-MAC is Problematic

There’s no guarantee Ashland would have been receptive to an invitation to join the MEC. But on proximity alone, it at least would have entertained the offer. But this move leaves the MEC with three options in relation to the opening in its membership ranks, and none are promising. There’s one Ohio school left not already in the MEC or G-MAC, and that is Central State University. CSU is the only public Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) institution in Ohio. It joined the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SIAC) fully in 2015. Travel-wise, the MEC is a much better fit than the SIAC for CSU. But so was CSU’s former conference—the G-MAC. The SIAC has 14 members colleges and universities, all but one (Spring Hill College) are also HBCUs. If proximity wasn’t enough to keep CSU in the G-MAC, the MEC won’t be able to use that as a bargaining chip. The second option is trying to pry an Ohio-based member away from the G-MAC. Ohio Dominican perhaps? Maybe Lake Erie, which would give NDC a natural rival right down the road in Painesville? But again, we come back to proximity. Why increase travel costs now, especially when the conference was just strengthened by the addition of one of Division II’s top overall programs? That leaves the third option: adding a team not from Ohio. Sure, this would bring the conference membership back to 12. But it leaves Notre Dame on an island. How long do you think the athletic leadership at NDC will sit on that island with the G-MAC party boat cruising by and blasting its horn, beckoning with its short drives and more natural rivalries?

Competition in the PSAC has been unkind to Seton Hill, with the Griffins failing to garner a winning season since joining in 2013. Photo courtesy of Seton Hill sports information

Other Options Part I: The PSAC

So, what, or particularly who, is left for the MEC to pursue? Conference leadership also expressed interest in a replacement preferably field football. So, let’s start there. The most recent team to leave the MEC, save for Urbana, was Shepherd. The Rams were a long-time MEC and former WVIAC member which left for the greener gridiron pastures of the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference. A return is highly unlikely. The same can be said for fellow recent defectee, the University of Virginia College Wise, which left in 2018 for the South Atlantic Conference. The UVA-W leadership commented that the SAC had a better geographic footprint. So again, a return is unlikely. But let’s stick with PSAC for a second. Seton Hill and non-football playing University of Pitt-Johnstown were members of the WVIAC when the MEC was formed. The two opted to join the PSAC, also one of the top conferences in Division II and the regional bellwether for football. But the Griffins time in the PSAC has been anything but easy. Save for the baseball program, which has two conference championships, and the volleyball team’s crown in 2017, winning seasons are tough to come by. Since joining in 2013, the Griffins’ football team has gone 15-61, with its best effort a 5-6 record in 2016. The top teams in the conference—California, IUP, Slippery Rock and now Shepherd -- are hammering the Griffins with regularity. Might the Griffins be lured away with a slightly more favorable football climate in the MEC?  There are already built-in relationships from the WVIAC days.

Rex Pyles Arena, home of the Battlers of Alderson-Broaddus, is in need of major repairs and upgrades and closed for use prior to the end of the 2019-20 basketball season. Should the MEC pursue A-B to rejoin fellow former WVIAC members, this problem will need rectified.

Other Options Part II: Former WVIAC Members

Kyle Cooper may be a Keystone-state native, but throughout his adult life, those ‘County Roads’ seemingly keep him coming ‘home.’ Cooper grew up in Waterford, Pa., less than a 20-mile trip southeast from Erie. Yet when it came time to select a college, Cooper opted to attend West Virginia University in Morgantown. This, despite the fact that his father is a Penn State alum.There he earned dual bachelor’s degrees during his undergrad career. He decided to stick around Morgantown to finish his master’s in educational leadership. All the while, Cooper spent his free hours surrounded by basketball -- first helping John Beilein’s men’s team as a manager and camp counselor, and then hopping over to the women’s program to help Mike Carey as first the head student manager and then as a graduate assistant. He finally left to work as director of women’s basketball operations at Ohio University in Athens for one season, before an assistant coaching opportunity opened up at then Wheeling Jesuit University. After two seasons at WJU, Cooper jumped at the chance to work and learn under Lynn Ullom at rival West Liberty. When Ullom hung up the whistle and accepted the Athletics Director position at WLU, he handed the reins to Cooper. Cooper has spent nearly as much time living as a West Virginian as he has as a Pennsylvanian -- a fact not lost on the married father of two. It doesn’t hurt that his wife is an Ohio Valley native and Katie, like her husband, works for the university as West Liberty’s Director of Financial Aid.

Cooper poses for a family photo with wife Katie, son Brody and daughter Cali.

All in the Family

That closeness has helped Cooper run his program like a tight-knit family. His top assistant, Cassie Seth, grew up in Waterford along with Kyle. They knew each other long before Seth, whom Cooper calls his co-head coach, Cassie Seth, joined Cooper's coaching staff after serving as an assistant at Baldwin-Wallace College. The two play off one another, which helps both in coaching and in recruiting. Speaking of recruiting, now that he’s the head coach, Cooper hasn’t stepped back and asked his assistants to handle his light work. He’s actively involved in the process. He knows the types of not only players, but also people whom wants to bring into his team environment. They have to be the right fit. The only way to ensure that is to develop a close relationship with the player prior to committing to the university—as close as the NCAA allows anyway. But that bond continues long after the recruited players sign on the line. It’s not a ploy to get them to come to West Liberty, but a genuine philosophical approach to basketball and life. Watch Cooper interact with his players, both on the sidelines, at practice, or even during a press conference, and you can see the camaraderie and mutual respect. The players know Coach Kyle has their back and offers his full support. At such a transitional point in a young adult’s life, that is support is key.

There's always time for a celebratory fist bump, even during the game.

You’ve gotten to work in some capacity under some pretty successful coaches, from John Beilein and Mike Carey at WVU to Lynn Ullom at West Liberty. Obviously, you want to forge your own style and path, but do you find yourself taking bits and pieces from each and molding them into how you want to coach and teach the game?

There is no doubt that I have been fortunate to work under and alongside some incredible coaches including Lynn Ullom, Mike Carey, Joanna McNamee (Bernabei), John Beilein, and Semeka Randall (Lay). I have always been someone that is a sponge and almost nerdy when it comes to the game. I was fortunate to grow up around great people, especially my parents, and they pushed me always to outwork people and take on more, and that carried right into how I approached and forged my path into coaching. Whether it was trying to sit in recruiting meetings, practice, game, etc. as a student manager to pushing to take as much ownership of the program as an assistant coach, I am someone that wants to constantly learn, grow, and develop. I'm fortunate to say that the majority of people I have worked for and with I have stayed close to and now am fortunate enough to call them friends, colleagues, mentors, and family. They all have shaped me in some way into who I am today; whether it was Coach Beilein's meticulous film study and work, Coach Carey's intensity and ability to push people harder than they believe they can go, Coach McNamee's ability to build meaningful and genuine relationships, Coach Randall’s passion for the game and her players, or Coach Ullom's unique and effective style of play, there is a part of them in everything that I do. I still turn to each of them, among others, on a regular basis as I continue to evolve as a coach but always remember to still be me in every way and put my own spin on things because the more true you are to yourself, the better you are going to be, and the more the players are going to believe.

You’re a Pa. native, but you have spent most of your time in the MEC with primarily West Virginia schools. Is there something about the area that interested you in the first place or is it the conference itself which seems fairly competitive with some top teams and individual talent?

I am definitely a Western Pa. guy and proud of that, but somewhere along the way, despite my love for Penn State football and my dad being an alum there, I wanted to pave my own path, and that led to WVU, where my career in coaching truly began to grow, and more and more opportunities started to present themselves. Honestly, I never saw myself getting out of the DI world, but I wanted desperately to get out of the administrative/operations side of the game and dive into the recruiting and more true coaching roles so when the opportunity presented itself through networking ties to get into the DII world in the Ohio Valley, where my wife is from (Weirton Girl), I took the chance and made the move; and I have never looked back and truly love being at West Liberty University because this place is special. It is really crazy to think that in a few years here I will have spent as much time living in the state of West Virginia as I did growing up in the state of Pennsylvania, and I love it here, and I've enjoyed my time at WVU and WLU.

Coach Kyle treats his players like family. He teaches them, cares for them, and occasionally, he needs to light the proverbial fire underneath them during a timeout. They players know he wants them to maximize their potential and see them succeed, so it makes the occasional bouts of tough coaching all the more palatable.

This was your fourth year involved in the recruiting process as a head coach. How did it differ, not only in terms of has it gotten easier but also the challenges that may have been posted by the pandemic? Do you think this will have more of an effect on the 2021 and 2022 class than this year’s?

I've learned that being the head coach versus the assistant coach comes with different hurdles and challenges, and recruiting is no different. Everywhere I have been, I have always had my hands in recruiting and loved it. I've always been known as a recruiter when it comes to hearing colleagues, competitors, etc. describe me, and I can honestly say that unlike most head coaches, especially at the DI level, I am still extremely active in the recruiting process. For example, Cassie and I tag team all recruiting travel versus her doing the majority of travel. I still take the lead on planning visits, meetings, game plans, etc. I guess I am someone that always has believed that you win this game with people, so I am going to make sure that the people we bring into this program and family are the right ones. There is no doubt that this pandemic has affected recruiting in a major way. We love to get out on the road and see players, and once we identify the ones we want, it is a full court press to build that relationship, get them on campus, and sell who we are and what we're about. Like anything though, we are adapting. One unique thing that we did was I went and shot multiple short videos of myself touring our athletic facilities and then Cassie put the product together so that recruits who couldn't come to campus could see how lucky we are here; and I am happy to say they were a hit and helped us in major way. We make sure as a staff to keep family and who we are at the heart of things, and so even with distance we highlight that.

Speaking of recruiting, you had a brief performance as Topper the Bear; not a lot of head coaches would be willing to do that. Do you think it’s important for your players to see that side of your personality as well? Even during the press conference following the regular-season finale against Wheeling with your four seniors, you could see the family-style atmosphere and camaraderie with the players. Is it tough to balance that with the demands of coaching?

I have to credit Cassie with pushing me to do that, and I’m fortunate to have her in so many ways, but she really has a pulse on players and gets really creative with ideas. We’re definitely a staff that isn’t afraid to show people, not just players and recruits, who we are because that’s what it’s about in life, and that’s doing what you love and being true to who you are while doing it. There’s no doubt that I believe the biggest part of our success as a program surrounds our approach to relationships, and I can honestly say that we show love and vulnerability and so on with our players, and in turn they play harder for one another and for us. Family is not a sell for us; it is a way of life here at West Lib. It can be tough to balance our approach with the demands of actually coaching and pushing the players, but a lot of that takes care of itself because they genuinely want to get better and want to play hard and want to do things the right way because of that level of care for one another. Our relationships being stronger allows us to better work together to get the best out of one another while wanting to be the best versions of ourself at the same time. I’m also a firm believer that it’s easier to take tough coaching when you know it is done out of love and out of a genuine want to make you and us successful versus fear or other tactics. 

There are a lot of demands timewise from someone in your position. Is it tough spending so much time away from the family? Or, given that both you and your wife work for the university, is it easier to incorporate your children into your work lives? 

The West Liberty women are two years removed from an appearance in the MEC Championship game and a spot in the NCAA Division II Tournament. It’s been six seasons since the Hilltoppers last hoisted the Mountain East Conference’s tournament champion trophy. While WLU is still one of the preeminent programs in the MEC, it is no longer the program. That designation belongs to the Glenville State Pioneers, winners of three-straight tournament championships and four-straight regular season crowns. Only a loss to then Wheeling Jesuit in the 2016-17 tourney finals temporarily forestalled this championship run. Hilltoppers coaching legend Lynn Ullom used to say that at “West Liberty, we play for championships.” When you win six conference tournament championships and qualify for the NCAA tournament 14 times, it’s a fair statement to make. Current Coach Kyle Cooper enters his fourth season coming off a rare sub.500 campaign, only the school’s third in the last 10 seasons. But West Liberty showed promise down the stretch, and, despite two key losses to graduation, the Hilltoppers’ returners, bolstered by a talented recruiting class, just may have Cooper’s bunch headed back toward the top of the MEC standings. “I’m really excited about this class,” Cooper said. “We did a good job of balancing our needs. A lot of people look at a class and say you need to replace what was lost the year prior, but we don’t look at it that way. We felt like we were replacing from the last two years.”

The Hilltoppers have three returning senior starters, led by point guard Audrey Tingle. From left are Olivia Belknap, Tingle and Jaclyn Kitts.

What Was Lost

Two seasons ago, it was MEC Player of the Year Marissa Brown and her 6-foot-3 frame posting nightly double-doubles as the Hilltoppers finished 21-10, losing to Glenville four times, including in the MEC Finale and the NCAA Tournament regional opener. Two starters returned from that team, but its offensive identity was missing. While WLU searched for that identity, it struggled in conference play with a 4-11 mark after starting the season 3-4. The team finished eighth in scoring (76.2), seventh in 3-point percentage (.309), and next to last in total field goal percentage (.387). Compounding matters was the team finished 10th in both offensive and defensive rebounds. To put things in perspective, the team leader, and actually eighth-ranked in the conference in rebounding, was junior Audrey Tingle at 8.2 points per game. Keep in mind, Tingle is the team’s point guard. “She’s definitely the straw that stirs the drink; it’s incredible,” Cooper said of the soon-to-be senior. “We’ve had so many quality scorers, and because of how fast we play, she gets overshadowed. But she’s a triple-double machine.” Tingle returns, along with fellow starters Olivia Belknap and Jaclyn Kitts. But the team does lose roughly 50 percent of its scoring production, along with its top perimeter threat in Morgan Brunner and Taylor Johnson. Three starters plus one budding deep threat in sophomore Corinne Thomas and a host of talented yet relatively untested underclassmen are tasked with getting West Liberty on the right side of .500.

Incoming Experience

Cooper is elated with his young players' development. He feels that combined with the talent and experience of the incoming class--two are junior transfers--that he has the right makeup to surprise any naysayers. “We have a couple who are pretty polished and ready to make an impact right away,” Cooper said. “We have two big-time transfers coming in, and the biggest thing is we have more experience right off the bat. Those two have played a lot of basketball.” Those two are Arriana Manzay, a 6-3 forward from Cisco College in Mesquite, Texas, and 5-6 guard Sydney Reed from Mansfield University (Pa.). Let’s start at the top, literally. Manzay gives West Liberty what it was lacking a season ago, an athletic, dominant post presence, capable of compiling points and rebounds en masse while providing a stalwart defensive presence. “It’s not just her size, but she is off-the-charts athletic,” Cooper said of Manzay. “We haven’t had someone with that kind of athleticism since Kiki Simpson, and this is on a 6-3 frame, not a 5-11. I’m not guaranteeing she will be what Kiki was, but she has the makings of a that type of player. She’ll have an impact on both sides of the floor.” Reed is coach’s kid and former two-time state champion at Juniata Valley High School. She’s spent the last two seasons toiling away in the always tough Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference at Mansfield. She averaged 6.8 points per game for Mansfield while leading the team in three and 3-point percentage (40%). “She will bring scoring, no doubt, and she will see an increase in value in our system,” Cooper said. “That’s not a criticism of Mansfield; it’s just who we are as a team. She moves well off the game and sees the game well.”

The Gem and Potential Steal

The gem of this class may be Mohawk's Karly McCutcheon, a 5-9 shooting guard who was named the Post Gazette's Class AAA Player of the Year. She finished with 1,099 career points, despite missing nearly all of her junior season with an injury. Hitting at 40-percent from behind the arc, McCutcheon set school marks in 3-pointers in a game (9), season (91) and career (185). “She may be one of the most polished high school players we’ve signed, or I’ve signed here or elsewhere,” Cooper said. “She’s unbelievably strong and is a big time 3-point shooter. She had a lot of mid-major interest, but no one was willing to pull the trigger. After our home visit, she decided she wanted to be a part of the West Liberty family.” Cooper admits that he first found McCutcheon while attending an AAU scrimmage to observe a few other players. But McCutcheon immediately caught his attention. “I’d never seen her play, but I was told to watch her from one of the coaches who knows who we are and how we play,” “Cooper said. “Within five minutes, I looked at (assistant coach) Cassie (Seth) and said that kid needs to go here. She’s now our top priority, and we worked tirelessly to get her.” How tirelessly you ask? During their home visit, Cooper put on the Topper the Bear school mascot costume for when McCutcheon answered the door. Whether or not it was that personal touch, or how much West Liberty made an effort to secure McCutcheon’s commitment while others perhaps shied away because of the injury is hard to say. Cooper’s main concern is she’s now a Hilltopper.

Pair of Rookies