But they can't escape one nagging shortcoming.

Since the West Virginia Conference's inaugural women's tournament in 1978, the school has never won the tourney title.

"I keep hearing that,'' Bobcat coach Jacqueline DeVane said with a smile.  

"I've known that since my freshman year,'' said senior guard Lydia Bridenbaugh.

No. 1 Wesleyan reached the sixth tournament title game in school history by building a big lead early and cruising past No. 4 Shepherd 74-47 in a Friday afternoon semifinal at the Civic Center. A crowd of about 500 attended.

The Bobcats (23-6), who have won 14 of 15 and won their two tournament games by a combined margin of 50 points, will play for the championship at 3 p.m. today against No. 3 Glenville State.

"We did exactly what I wanted us to do today,'' said DeVane, "and that was to come out, set the tone and, in the first few minutes, I wanted to dominate the game. And I think we were able to come out and do that.''

After leading by only 18-13 with 11:40 left in the first half, the Bobcats outscored the Rams 25-8 to lead 43-21 at halftime, limiting Shepherd to a 22.9 percent shooting in the first 20 minutes.

All in all, it was a good reflection of the Bobcat defense.

"Before going into the game,'' said Bridenbaugh, "everyone was motivated and ready to go, and as soon as we hit that floor we focused on defense first and foremost. And then once we got our defense going, the offense came with it.''

During the season, Shepherd (20-11) played competitively with the Bobcats, losing by eight and 12 points.

But on Friday, the Bobcats led by 27 early in the second half and by as many as 32.  

"As we've gone along, we've gotten stronger and stronger, and we've started peaking,'' said DeVane. "We have a great inside game, but it's mainly a tribute to our defense. When we get our defense going and with the way we've been doing it lately, it's hard to stop us. We kind of feed off it. Our defense was really on point today.''

Wesleyan's fitness and fast-paced style also may have contributed, the coach added.

"We're in decent shape,'' said DeVane, "so we pushed the ball, and we try to get other people tired. And we could see they were kind of tired in the first few minutes, so we wanted to keep pushing at 'em.''

Said Shepherd coach Melanie Ford, "Wesleyan did an excellent job of playing some team basketball and finding each other, and they did an excellent job of fighting for 40 minutes. They used their height against us; they used their speed against us.''

And in a continuation of their season-long style, the Bobcats worked the ball into the paint and earned 23 foul shots, making 17 of them.

For the season, they led the WVC in foul shots (613) and percentage (76.8).

Bridenbaugh, a Chillicothe, Ohio, native, led the Bobcats with 25 points on 8-of-15 shooting and had four assists. Jamie Kaufman had 18 points and 11 rebounds and Daria Abros'kina contributed 12 points and 14 rebounds.

Katie Biggs led the Rams with nine points. Jimyse Brown and Shelby Fayak had eight each.

Reach Mike Whiteford at mikewhitef...@wvgazette.com.