WHEELING, W.Va. – It certainly wasn't pretty and it definitely wasn't easy but defending Mountain East Conference Men's Basketball Tournament champion Fairmont State, the No. 4 seed in 2022, survived a physical battle with fifth-seeded Notre Dame here Friday night at WesBanco Arena in the quarterfinals and emerged with a thrilling 67-65 victory.
The win improved Fairmont State to 23-6 on the year and earned the Falcons a berth in the semifinals Saturday against top-seeded West Liberty at 6 p.m. The Hilltoppers eliminated ninth-seeded Wheeling University Friday night, 89-81. FSU and West Liberty split their regular-season meetings.
"It was a great win for us," Fairmont State coach Tim Koenig said. "Any win in a tournament is. Obviously you saw tonight, they don't come easy."
The contest, which was close throughout, featured 12 lead changes and five ties. Fairmont State held the lead for nearly 28 minutes of the game, but the Falcons never had more than a nine-point advantage. Notre Dame's largest lead was by four midway through the first half.
"We played them at home and it came down to the last few seconds and it was the same thing when we went up there," said Fairmont's Isaiah Sanders, who finished with 18 points, 13 of which came in the opening half. "I knew it was going to be a tough, physical game so I really wanted to focus on one play at a time.
"We had to get stops and we got stops. We had to be the more scrappy team and do the little things right and I think we did that. At the end of the game the results showed.
"I told (FSU true freshman) George (Mangas) before we came here this was going to be an opportunity for him to prove himself in front of a lot of people and he did that today so I'm proud of him."
Mangas was huge for Fairmont State Friday night. The freshman forward, who has had to take on a much more significant role on both ends of the floor with FSU veteran forward Seth Younkin sidelined with a season-ending knee injury, led the Falcons with 22 points, 13 of which came in the second half. He was 7-of-10 from the field and a perfect 7-of-7 at the foul line in his first-ever MEC Tournament game.
"The game plan was to go out there and if they played zone the middle was going to be open and I just tried to take advantage of that," Mangas said. "I have to play the big now and when I got in the middle they weren't guarding me and my shot was on. Zay (Sanders) pushed me all week to step up, up here and that's what I tried to do tonight."
Fairmont led 34-33 at the break, but in the first 13 minutes of the second half had turned its one-point lead into a nine-point advantage at 60-51 with just under seven minutes to play. Back-to-back steals and layups by Notre Dame, however, quickly cut FSU's lead to five and it was never more than that again.
A pair of Mangas free throws gave Fairmont a 66-63 lead with 23 seconds remaining. At the other end, Notre Dame struggled to get a shot it wanted and as a result ran a lot of clock and settled for a Daylin Lee scoop bucket with just 2.5 seconds left. Fairmont then inbounded the ball to Sanders, who was immediately fouled with 2.4 seconds left and made 1-of-2 free throws to secure the win.
"It was obviously a tough result," said Notre Dame coach Mark Richmond. "We got there late and just kind of ran out of time. I thought we finally got some rhythm there late offensively and got downhill and were making plays, but we couldn't get that one more stop late in the game.
"I also thought our 17 turnovers led to our demise. We just couldn't take care of the ball as well as we normally have all year. A lot of these games can go either way and obviously we came out on the short end tonight."
Both teams had 10 turnovers in the sloppy first half, but as Richmond noted a big difference in the final 20 minutes was that Fairmont only had three, while Notre Dame turned it over seven times.
"We wanted to get downhill on them and attack as much as possible and get to the free throw line," Notre Dame forward Michael Sampson, who had 13 points and a game-high 10 rebounds, said. "That really didn't happen. They switched to zone and that slowed us down a little, but basically on our end I just didn't feel like we did a good job of finishing at the rim for the most part."
Fairmont State's Zyon Dobbs joined Mangas and Sanders in double figures for the Falcons with 11 points. Sanders also led FSU on the glass with nine boards.
Notre Dame, which finished its season at 15-14, also got 13 points from Jaedon Willis and 12 points apiece from John Godinez and Michael Kirkland.
The trip to the semifinals of the league tournament will be the sixth for Fairmont State in the conference's eight-year history. FSU has made the finals three times, winning it last season against West Liberty.
