PRINCETON – Princeton was hoping to be the second Class AAAA team to beat Bluefield this season.
Instead the Tigers became the second to fall to the Beavers.
A pair of 3-pointers from Caleb Fuller and a third from Jae’on Flack helped the visiting Beavers turn a 45-38 lead into a 54-40 advantage in the fourth quarter as the Beavers won the Princeton Holiday Tournament with a 61-47 victory over the Tigers Saturday evening at Princeton High.
What was a close game throughout the first three quarters saw the Beavers separate late and put the nail in the coffin with the quick barrage from downtown.
“We emphasized at halftime the first three minutes were going to be the most important,” Bluefield coach Buster Large said. “It was and it was nip and tuck. We came out and threw the ball away four straight times and that’s something we’ve really been working on. It’s still young in the season and we’ve got some young guys. I thought the penetration there in the fourth quarter, when we busted out of that four-point lead and got a little breathing room at six or seven was huge and then we came out and hit back to back 3s.
After a slow start on both sides the Beavers threatened to run away early, jumping out to an 18-9 lead in the second quarter. The Tigers stemmed the tide, getting scoring contributions from six different players in the quarter. A pair of free throws courtesy of E.J Washington helped the hosts slash the deficit down to two but a bucket from Chance Johnson staked the Beavers to a 26-22 advantage heading into the intermission.
The lead swelled back to six early in the third for Bluefield but buckets by Jon Wellman and Chase Hancock slashed it back to two.
Still, the Beavers own big man, R.J. Hairston, rose to the challenge, scoring 12 of his 18 points in the second half. Eight of them came in the third quarter as he was 4 of 6 from the field.
“R.J. is really coming onto his own,” Large said. “He’s had a double-double two different times now and being 3-1 early on the season is going to be huge. But Caleb Fuller, Jae’on Flack and we got great bench play from Steven Addair and Chance Johnson.”
Fuller, who had just four points in the first half, started heating up in the the third quarter, scoring the Beavers’ last five points of the frame to help them to a 43-33 advantage.
Soon after came the dagger stretch.
The junior sharpshooter converted on a driving layup and nailed back-to-back 3-pointers on Bluefield’s following two possessions to push the lead to 51-40.
After a missed shot by Princeton on the other end, Flack grabbed the rebound and popped another 3-pointer to stretch the lead to 14. The Tigers never recovered as the visitors maintained a double-digit lead the rest of the way.
“I saw poor defense is what I saw,” Princeton coach Robb Williams said. “We handled their press pretty well and we didn’t have any silly turnovers. I told the guys before we started that all presses generate turnovers and I thought we did a good job. I was pleasantly surprised about that because we hadn’t played anyone expect Tazewell and they didn’t put any pressure on us. We didn’t have very many practices because of quarantines. I was pleased overall. They’re very athletic and they hit the big shots obviously.
“We fell back in the third and it was tied. I guess we got a little tired in the fourth but our defense was probably the worst I’ve seen since I’ve been coaching here. It’s got to get better and the coaches got to game plan better and prepare us better in practice and that starts with me. I’ve got to do a better job coaching on the defensive end.”
Bluefield shot the ball from deep 11 times, converting on four of them, an improvement on a 3 for 21 showing against Oak Hill last week.
“I’m not going to say we shot ourselves out of the game last week but I will say we didn’t help ourselves,” Large said. “Three-pointers are a great scoring opportunity but when they’re not going in you’ve got to back off of them. Good basketball teams find a way to adapt and change their offense and we’re going to do that.”
Caleb Fuller led all scorers with 19 points while R.J. Hairston scored 18 to go along with 10 rebounds. Nick Flemming and Jon Wellman had eight each for Princeton.
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In the consolation game of the tournament PikeView overcame a 30-20 halftime deficit to beat Tazewell, Va. 71-60. Jared Vestal continued his strong start to the season, scoring 20 points while Dylan Blake added 18.
Email: tylerjackson@lootpress.com and follow on Twitter @tjack94
B: 14 12 17 18 – 61
P: 9 15 11 14 – 47
Bluefield (3-1)
Steven Addair 3, Ja’eon Flack 7, Chance Johnson 8, Braden Fong 2, Caleb Fuller 19, Will Looney 4, R.J. Hairston 18
Princeton (2-1)
Nick Fleming 8, Jared Watson 2, Davon Edwards 2, Aiden Ash 2, Chase Hancock 8, Kham Hurte 3, Grant Cochran 6, Kris Joyce 2, EJ Washington 6, Jon Wellman 8
3-point goals – B: 4 (Fuller 2, Flack 1, Addair 1); P: 1 (Hurte 1)
PikeView 71, Tazewell 60
PV: 11 20 23 28 – 71
T: 12 30 12 18 – 60
PikeView (1-3)
Nathan Riffe 11, Kameron Lawson 3, Drew Damewood 3, Kaleb Dunn 3, David Thomas 3, Dylan Blake 18, Zach Rose 9, Jared Vestal 20
Tazewell
Jacob Witt 10, Carter Creasy 8, Ethan Mills 3, Brady Patterson 2, Sean Ray 19, Tre Blankenship 8, Gideon Collier 6, Gavin Duty 4
3-point goals – PV: 5 (Riffe 2, Rose 1, Vestal 2); T: 7 (Creasy 2, Ray 5).
