Gallery by Heather Belcher
Beckley – Having already met twice with both games playing out differently, it was impossible to predict exactly how the third meeting between Princeton and Beckley in the Class AAAA Region 3, Section 2 Championship game would play out.
The answer? Like the most recent game between the two squads.
Beckley outscored Princeton 19-5 in the second quarter, beating the Tigers for third time this season with a 66-41 victory Friday in Beckley.
After swiping a 49-45 win at Princeton on Jan. 17 and later a 71-27 victory over the Tigers in Beckley on Jan. 31, it was difficult to say which Princeton team would show up Friday.
Unfortunately for the visitors it was the same one that’s showed up in most of their losses – one that’s struggled to shoot. The Tigers connected on just 28 percent of their 50 field goal attempts and turned the ball over 22 times.
“That’s been our achilles heel all year,” Princeton head coach Matt Smith said. “We came out in the third quarter and made shots and scored more points than we did in the first half. A lot of it is how hard we had to play tonight and a lot of it’s Woodrow. We don’t shoot the best but I’ve got to give credit to them because they do a lot of things that make it difficult on you.”
After hitting 10 3-pointers in Tuesday’s win against Oak Hill, the Flying Eagles came out firing again. A pair of treys from Abby Dillon and Lataja Creasey helped the hosts take an 8-4 advantage. Autumn Bane answered with a layup for Princeton but Keanti Thompson joined the pool party, splashing her own 3 to extend the Beckley advantage to five at 11-6.
“We don’t want the ball to stick,” Beckley head coach Brian Nabors said. “Any time the ball is sticking we’re not successful. The turnovers we had tonight, the ball stuck and we played stagnant. We want to continue to be in attack mode. We’ve got good ball handlers so if it’s put on the floor we want to be making progress to the basket. We wanted to prepare for that triangle and two that they ran against Greenbrier East but they came out in a 1-2-2 and I thought we handled it well. We were very poised, got some open looks ands took the open looks. We’ve got to take those looks and we want them to take those open looks. We shoot a lot in practice and relish those opportunities and knock them down when we need to.”
A 3 from Reagen Southers helped Princeton cut the deficit to four after a quarter but the storm never relented.
Thompson nailed another trey and Donya Burton capped a 3-point play that helped Beckley establish a 20-9 advantage. Asia Collins bumped it back to single digits with a layup on the other end for Princeton but a 12-5 spurt gave Beckley a 32-14 advantage at the intermission.
For the Tigers the numbers reflected a poor quarter as they were 2 of 14 shooting in the frame with nine turnovers.
Still, they weren’t finished.
An Autumn Bane 3 late in the third quarter cut the deficit back to 13 at 44-31 but a 7-0 Beckley run to end the frame quelled the uprising and nipped the last true threat of the evening.
“We talked about it at halftime,” Nabors said. “We knew they were going to come out and give it everything they have. The reason they got shots and got back in the game was because we had some missed assignments. Once we made the adjustment I didn’t want to call a timeout. I wanted them to figure it out because they know what we needed to do. So I ended up calling a timeout later once we got back in the groove just to praise them because I thought that they showed a lot of poise down the stretch when things weren’t going right. I thought that showed maturity on our team and I thought it showed responsibility in our leadership in making sure that we stayed the course and finished the quarter on a positive note.”
Up next for each team are Wednesday regional matchups with state tournament berths on the line. Princeton will head to George Washington while Beckley will host South Charleston.
The Flying Eagles lost twice to South Charleston this season on Dec. 6 and 30. Princeton lost 55-39 at George Washington on Jan. 9.
“Both games were in December,” Nabors said. “I think it’s going to be a great matchup. South Charleston’s a great team and we had a hard time guarding them at times. At the same time I think we match up well. They beat us twice and nothing else needs to be said. If our team’s not ready to play and get some get-back, something’s wrong. I believe in this team and believe they want another shot at South Charleston. They believe we should’ve won the first game and the second game we just did not play well and they did. We’re a different team now, we’ve improved and we’ve gotten better. We’re on a mission and these girls want it. I see it and I believe it.”
“We played a good first half,” Smith said of his team’s matchup with GW earlier in the season. “This one girl hit three straight 3s on us in the third quarter and didn’t make anything else the rest of the night. A four-point game goes to 13 pretty quick and it’s hard for us to make up that deficit with our shooting woes at times. I’ll start looking at film tonight and see what we can do best. They have three dynamic players and they give us different trouble than the ones here at Woodrow tonight. We’ll start lookin at it and get us in the best situation to be successful.”
P: 9 5 17 10 – 41
B: 13 19 19 15 – 66
Princeton
Kylie Conner 7, Maddie Stull 7, Autumn Bane 10, Reagan Southers 8, Kalyn Davis 3, Kalee Wright 2, Asia Collins 4
Beckley
Abby Dillon 9, Josie Cross 4, Lataja Creasey 18, Keanti Thompson 16, Madison Belcher 2, Leiloni Manns 1, Donya Burton 14, Mya Wooton 2
3-point goals – P: 4 (Bane 2, Southers 2); B:8 (Dillon 2, Creasey 3, Thompson 2, Burton 1)
