WHEELING, W.Va. – When a team plays on Saturday in the conference tournament, that means they are one win away from a spot in the championship game. After an upset victory on Friday, Notre Dame College, the five seed in the Mountain East Conference Tournament, went up against the top seed, and No. 5 ranked West Liberty University. WLU was able to pull away in the second half for a 96-75 victory.

Notre Dame finishes the campaign with the most wins in a season since 2018-19 (17), most home wins since 2018-19 (10) and picked up the program's first conference tournament victory since 2019.

The Falcons missed a few early shots, including two 3-pointers. After going down by nine points, 11-2, NDC made adjustments. Graduate student Tyland Crawford stepped up by making back-to-back jumpers and then passing to sophomore DeAirius Barker for an assist. With 14:47 on the first half clock, Notre Dame had closed the gap to six points, 14-8.

West Liberty hit a couple threes to grab a 10-point lead, 20-10, but then the Falcons really found their groove on the offensive end. Senior Jaedon Willis grabbed an offensive rebound and knocked down a shot. Barker knocked down a pair of free throws and West Liberty missed three shots on one possession.

The NDC run continued as sophomore Jamarr Talbert Jr. grabbed an offensive rebound and followed it up with a layup. Willis hit a tough fadeaway jumper, with 11:20 remaining before halftime, to close the deficit to two points, 20-18, and cap an 8-0 run.

The Hilltoppers made their first shot in over two minutes, when Ben Sarson knocked down a three-pointer. Crawford ran out ahead of everyone and made a layup on a fastbreak to close the gap to three points, 23-20.

Crawford played all 20 minutes in the first half, scoring 10 points and going 5-for-5 from the field.

Despite not hitting a three-pointer in the first half, the Falcons continued to match every run by WLU. After the Hilltoppers pulled ahead by eight points, 28-20, Notre Dame had a second chance opportunity that Willis took advantage of. Sophomore Gbolahan Adio knocked down a jumper and, a little over a minute later, Crawford made another shot to pull Notre Dame within three points, 29-26, with 6:29 to go before halftime.

NDC had trouble finding the bottom of the net over the final six minutes of the half. The Falcons scored just four more points and trailed, 46-32, at halftime.

Notre Dame fell behind by 16 points, early in the second half, but put together a run to close the deficit to single digits. Sophomore Obinna Ugwuakazi was an important part of three consecutive possessions. He split a pair of free throws, knocked down a layup and then grabbed an offensive rebound and made another layup.

Ugwuakazi had five points to go along with 11 rebounds. He finished with 30 rebounds over the two games in Wheeling, which is just outside of the top 10 for an MEC Tournament.

West Liberty missed a shot and then turned the ball over and the Falcons took advantage. Crawford connected on a shot and, on the next possession, he knocked down a layup and a foul was called. He made the free throw to cut the WLU lead to six points, 48-42, with under 16 minutes to play.

Crawford would end the game shooting 8-for-10 from the field, for 17 points.

"It was a long season and we had a lot of ups and downs," Crawford said. "We just tried to stick with it everyday. We wanted to enjoy every day and lead by example. I'm going to remember this team forever."

That would be as close as NDC could get as West Liberty pushed its lead to as much as 21 points, later in the half.

"Obviously, a disappointing result," said head coach Mark Richmond. "I really thought we played hard today. Our effort was good, I don't know if our execution was great, and it kind of got out of hand a couple of times. [West Liberty] is a team of runs and we just could never get all the way back into it."

Willis had 12 points in the second half, and finished with a team-leading 20 points. 

"The most important thing that we did this year was, we stuck together," Willis explained. "When we lost a couple games in a row, our focus never wavered, especially in practice. We came ready to win. We have a tough group. Today's game doesn't take away from what we did this year."

Willis ends the season with 630 points, which is 8th most in program history. He made 171 free throws, which is sixth in NDC history for a single season, and he shot 87.7-percent at the free throw line, which is second in program history. In his two-year career at NDC, he ended with 1,224 points and his 20.7 points per game average is second in program history. He made 166 3-pointers, which is sixth most in program history, knocked down 298 free throws, which is sixth most, and held a free throw percentage of 85.9-percent, which is fourth highest.