Tuesday afternoon in its opening round game against Wyoming East in the Little General Battle for Armory, Princeton was hampered all game with foul issues.
The Tigers had the remedy sitting on the bench.
Getting 24 points from the non-starters, many in key moments, Princeton held off a late push from the Class AA No. 10 Warriors for a 63-58 win.
“Every game this year, my entire bench has played significant time. I was certainly pleased with how they played tonight,” Princeton head coach Robb Williams said. “Anytime you get a win against a good team, it’s a good win. We knew we would have to work, but I was hoping we wouldn’t have to work so hard.”
With starters Jon Wellman and Devon Edwards sitting due to foul issues, Princeton watched the pesky Warriors run out to a 29-22 lead with three minutes left in the first half.
Tigers starter Kris Joyce then hit a triple to ignite a run that reserves Nick Fleming and Jared Watson polished off to change the game.
Five points from Fleming and four more from Watson capped a 12-0 run and gave Princeton a 34-29 lead at halftime.
“They came in and played good. Even in the third quarter they came back in and gave us some runs,” Williams said. “When I picked the squad this year, I told them it would be the toughest year for me because we have 10 really good players.”
“That makes us tough. One time we went with five guards and another time we had three big guys on the floor,” Williams went on to say. “Top to bottom we are solid, we just don’t have that one player that will take over a game. We can take the foul trouble and be better than most.”
Unfortunately for Wyoming East, it was also battling some foul trouble over that key stretch. Leading scorer Tanner Whitten was on the bench with two fouls and could not help his team battle the Tigers comeback.
“I thought it was a really tough call on Whitten’s second foul there with both of them going for a loose ball. We had to sit him down with foul trouble,” Wyoming East head coach Derek Brooks said. “Still, it has to be next man up. We didn’t play good defense. We gave up too many dribble drives and too much penetration.”
Princeton pushed the lead to nine early in the third period before a steal and a slam from Whitten help bring the Warriors back to within four points with just under two minutes to play in the quarter.
The Princeton bench restored order, however, on a bucket from Watson and a 3-pointer by Kham Hurte. When Devon Edwards rained in a 3 to beat the buzzer, the Tigers led 52-42 with eight minutes to play.
Although it was down, Wyoming East was far from out.
Whitten scored five of his game-high 28 points to cut the lead in half. Princeton ran it back to eight, but four points from Whitten and a bucket from Cole Lambert made it a two-point game with 3:35 to play.
“We have to have the same effort for four quarters instead of just in the fourth quarter. They out-worked us a bit the first three (quarters),” Brooks said. “When it got down to the nitty-gritty and we had to go, we did. We have to play like that for 32 minutes.”
Two free-throws from Garrett Mitchell cut the lead to one-point with just over a minute to play, but the Warriors could get no closer.
“We kept fighting for sure. There is no quit in them,” Brooks said. “That has been Wyoming East basketball for as long as I can remember. We just turned the ball over in key spots. We shot free-throws well, but we missed a couple key ones down the stretch. Those are ones we have to have. They knocked theirs down at the end.”
Fighting the foul issues, Williams was happy to walk away with the win.
“It’s good to get a win. The foul situation was a little different than what you would expect by two physical teams. One team was hampered with fouls and the other team wasn’t. That kinda hurt us,” Williams said. “It altered the game some, but Wyoming East was really solid. There were runs by both teams. They went through a phase where they were hitting a lot of shots, then when they cooled off, we had a couple of runs ourselves.”
Joyce led the Tigers with 17 points and Chase Hancock had 10. Fleming and Watson combined for 17 off the bench. Whitten had 10 rebounds for the Warriors and Mitchell scored 15 points.
Both teams are back in action today. Princeton will play Greater Beckley Christian at 4 p.m. in the championship game of the Pepsi Division.
Wyoming East will play Elkins in the consolation game at 2 p.m.
“(Greater Beckley) is No. 1 in single-A for a reason. They have some really good players and they like to press a lot,” Williams said. “We have a lot of ball-handlers, so it will interesting to see how we deal with that. If we shoot well, we can play with a lot of teams. If we don’t shoot well, it’s going to be a long night.”
WE: 16 13 13 16 – 58
P: 15 19 18 11 – 63
Wyoming East 58
Cole Lambert 9, Chandler Johnson 6, Tanner Whitten 28, Garrett Mitchell 15. Totals: 17-45 20-26 58.
Princeton 63
Devon Edwards 3, Chase Hancock 10, Grant Cochran 2, Kris Joyce 17, Jon Wellman 7, Nick Fleming 9, Jared Watson 8, Kham Hurte 5, E.J. Washington 2. Totals: 25-57 7-12 63.
3-pointers – WE: 4 (Whitten, Mitchell 3); P: 6 (Edwards, Hancock, Joyce, Wellman, Fleming, Hurte)
