Bluefield – Following its Region 3 co-final win Tuesday night, Bluefield chose not to cut the down the nets.
“We want to do that up at states.” senior Will Looney said.
Following a runner-up finish in the Class AA championship game last year, the 2022-23 basketball season has been about “unfinished business” for the Beavers.
In order to head back to the boys state tournament this year, Bluefield had to defeat Liberty Tuesday night.
Although the Beavers took care of business with a 54-46 win, the Raiders gave highly touted Bluefield all they wanted, and then some.
As a result of the win, Bluefield earned the No. 2 seed in the boys state basketball tournament to be played March 14-18 inside the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center.
The Beavers will play No. 7 seed Wheeling Central Wednesday, March 15 at 1:00 p.m.
Coming into the clash Tuesday with Bluefield, Liberty head coach Chad Williams knew his team was considered a heavy underdog.
“I tell the boys all the time, let the people talk all they want. People think we don’t have a chance to play against a team like Bluefield,” Williams said. “We were prepared. We watched a ton of film and we had a game plan that the boys believed in and I believed in. It came down to a couple of missed layups here and there and some missed free throws or we could be going to Charleston right now.”
The visitors took the early 4-0 lead before Bluefield ran off six straight points with some effective defensive pressure.
After a hoop from Liberty’s Zach Bowman tied the game, the Beavers ran off five quick points which was capped by a steal and a slam from senior Celeb Fuller that made the home crowd erupt with excitement.
Kam’Ron Gore capped a 10-point scoring quarter with a triple to beat the buzzer and nailed another long ball early in the second period for a 20-12 lead.
Back-to-back scores from Will Looney pushed the scored to 24-15 with just over five minutes to play in the half and Bluefield looked on the verge of running away.
As was the case all night, every time the boys from Glen Daniel got knocked down, they jumped back up fighting.
An 8-2 run just before the half trimmed the lead to three points before the Beavers took a 29-23 lead into the halftime locker room.
“The first half we were really intimidated by their size. We didn’t attack like we normally attack,” Williams said. “Had we not been afraid of the height and figured it out a little sooner, it is a totally different ball game.”
Another bucket from Zach Bowman narrowed the deficit to four points for Liberty, but with R.J. Hairston erasing shots at the rim, Bluefield countered with an 8-1 burst for the first double-digit lead of the contest.
With eight minutes to play in the game, the home team held a 42-30 advantage.
“Tonight was a grinder for sure. Liberty came in here and they wanted to win. They played us tight the whole game, but we had a lot of guys step up,” Fuller said. “We just didn’t shoot it well and tonight was one of those nights. We were able to play good defense and get it inside good enough to win tonight.”
A layup from Looney to start the final quarter gave Bluefield its biggest lead of the night at 14 points, but Liberty stayed within reach the rest of the way.
“We knew it was going to be tough tonight. Any regional championship game is going to be tough. It is no cake walk to get to Charleston and our coaching staff knew that,” Bluefield head coach Buster Large said. “We stuttered at times, but in all honestly I am glad to get out of here with the win. There will be some sad teams tonight that didn’t make it”
Midway through the quarter Liberty cut the lead to eight on two occasions, but a couple of missed free throws and a pair of good looks at the rim which did not fall, kept Bluefield out of reach.
The game plan coming in for Liberty was to limit the scoring from Fuller and Hairston.
The Raiders accomplished that with both players scoring six points each. However, with their teammates limited on the night, Gore exploded for a game-high 26 points and Looney added 12 for the Beavers.
“We knew they were too talented for us to match up with them man-to-man. We knew we couldn’t do that,” Williams said. “We had to keep the lane closed off, try to get (Hairston) in foul trouble and close out on Fuller. We can’t stop everybody, but if you can stop those two, it will make it a lot harder for them and I think that is what we did.”
Resean Simms led Liberty with 20 points and Jalen Cook scored 13.
While Bluefield moves on to the state tournament, the regional game brought an end to the high school careers of a scrappy group of Liberty seniors that have weathered extreme adversity throughout their careers.
“This group is across the board, the grittiest team that I have ever had,” Williams said. “We have had a player or two before that was scrappy and would dive after loose balls. It makes a huge difference when you have five or six kids do that and are willing to go up against guys that are way bigger than they are and way more experienced than they are.”
“Obviously I want to get out out of this three-game rut where we have been one game away from Charleston, but to walk out of (the Brushfork Armory) with the game the way it was, Liberty should be getting a lot more respect than what we have been given.”
L: 10 13 7 16 – 46
B: 17 12 13 12 – 54
Liberty
Conner Cantley 4, Zach Bowman 6, Jalen Cook 13, Resean Simms 20, Kris Bowman 3. Totals: 18 7-12 46.
Bluefield
Kam’Ron Gore 26, Sencere Fields 2, Will Looney 12, Caleb Fuller 6, R.J. Hairston 6, Jase Smith 2. Totals: 18 14-23 54.
