Gallery by Greg Barnett
Bluefield – With the elimination of sectional play and the expanded regional format, a new emphasis has been placed on regular season games – especially regional clashes.
Already owning three wins, James Monroe kicked off a crucial five-game stretch against regional foes with a showdown versus Bluefield inside the Brushfork Armory.
The Mavericks were once again up to the challenge.
Outscoring the Beavers 26-15 in the final quarter, James Monroe (8-1) knocked off Bluefield (0-8), 63-55.
“It’s huge. With this new format, you need to win games. It’s going to be hard if you are not one of the top two seeds,” first-year James Monroe head coach Kelly Mann said. “Otherwise, you are going to have to go somewhere and win a ball game in a tough environment. It has really upped the ante for what the regular season means. It is kind of like football, if you qualify down below No. 2, it is going to be a tough road. We are growing up together a little bit. All you can ask is full effort and full energy. We are going to figure out some of the other stuff, but we are coming.”
Unfortunately for Bluefield first-year head coach Tony Webster, watching a late lead fade away was an all too familiar occurrence for his team.
“We are not a four-quarter and overtime team yet. We have two or three good quarters and then we disappear for a quarter,” Webster lamented. “When a team plays hard like James Monroe, that is what is going to happen. My hat goes off to them. I thought they played harder than we did. We are still trying to figure this thing out.”
The visitors led just once early in the opening quarter and trailed by three points at the break.
Bluefield led by as many as six points in the third quarter, but when the horn sounded to end the period, the home team was holding a 40-37 advantage.
A bucket from Jase Smith expanded the lead to five points, but James Monroe kept fighting back.
“This group, I don’t worry about them folding it up,” Mann said. “I don’t worry about effort. I don’t worry about energy. We are going to fight. We just make things hard in other ways, but I can live with that.”
Kadyn Hines knocked down a free throw, but when his next attempt was off the mark, football all-stater Brady Baker grabbed the rebound and scored to cut the lead to two points.
Bluefield’s Ricky Dunford and Baker later exchanged buckets before back-to-back scores from Jase Smith pushed the lead back out to three points for the Beavers.
It was the last hoorah for the home team.
“It just fell apart. We had some foul trouble. (Junior) Greyson (Parris) and (senior) Jeffrey (King), our bigs, got in foul trouble. Then when you go to your bench, you don’t have that next junior or senior. You are looking at a freshman or a sophomore,” Webster explained. “But, if we start learning to play hard for four quarters, we will have a chance to win games. Until that happens, we will be the team with the outcomes that we have been having.”
A 3-ball from Jayden Miller tied the game ahead of Mann scoring on an inbound play to give James Monroe the lead for good.
After Smith’s bucket with 5:22 to play, Bluefield did not score again until Jack Hurt made a shot with 31.7 seconds left on the clock.
“We did some things that kind of kept the game in a slugfest at times,” Mann said. “We had a little spurt there, made some plays and created some distance. We grew up a little bit and learned a lot. When you win in here, it is always a good win.”
“You can look at this game a lot of different ways,” Mann went on to say. “We did make it a little difficult, but there is a bright side to that because those are things that we can clean up. There are some things that we can get better at. I told them at halftime, I wasn’t going to yell and scream, but we have to start changing some of the things that we are not doing well. It is nice when you are not coaching effort though and know you don’t have to coach effort.”
Mann led the Mavericks with 22 points, 15 in the second half, while Hines added 14 with 10 coming in the decisive fourth quarter.
“They are learning. They really are. I think their ceiling is much higher than where they are right now as basketball players,” Mann said. “They play multiple sports and maybe there is not enough time as I would like to spend on basketball, but I am a big fan of that. They will get more comfortable, a little more assertive and confident as we go.”
JM: 10 12 15 26 – 63
B: 17 8 15 15 – 55
James Monroe
Wil Boggess 4, Kadyn Hines 14, Ryan Mann 22, Jayden Miller 8, Lane Taylor 6, Brady Baker 6.
Bluefield
Davion Hickman 7, Jeffrey King 2, Jack Hurt 5, Ricky Dunford 15, Jase Smith 14, Greyson Parris 12.
