Gallery by Tina Laney
Brushfork – Earlier this week the Wyoming East girls basketball program won at Chapmanville to punch its ticket to the state tournament. If the boys hope to return to Charleston they’ll need to do the same.
Bluefield jumped out to a 20-3 lead after a quarter and was never threatened afterwards, securing a 67-44 win over the Wyoming East boys in the Class AA Region 3, Section 1 tournament Friday in Brushfork.
With the win the Beavers will host Liberty in a Region 3 co-final on Tuesday with a ticket to the state tournament on the line. Wyoming East will travel to Chapmanville that same night.
Bluefield played the hits inside the Brushfork Armory, using an aggressive defense to deny East standouts Cole Lambert and Garrett Mitchell from getting loose. The strategy worked as the pair was held to a combined four points through three quarters.
“We had a tremendous practice yesterday,” Bluefield coach Buster Large said. “Coach (Tony) Webster, (Jody) Fuller and (Doug) Miller put in a special defense and it was exceptional. It caught them off guard a little bit. We might’ve played the best game we played all year tonight.”
It would be hard to debate Large’s last statement.
The Beavers blitzed the Warriors forcing five turnovers in the opening frame and holding the Warriors to 1 of 7 shooting from the field. In comparison Bluefield made more field goals (8 of 13) than East took in the first quarter.
“You can’t score, you can’t win,” East head coach Derek Brooks said. “We had three points through 11 minutes. We didn’t attack their pressure when we beat it. We’d get in the middle and we’d turn it over or throw it back out instead of attacking. I’m kind of frustrated but we went over that. When we get in the middle we look to go to the other way and go to the basket. The first half we did not.”
A pair of treys from Caleb Fuller and Sencere Fields helped Bluefield to an 8-0 lead. Kam’Ron Gore added to the assault with another long ball before Fuller converted on a layup to make it a 13-0 advantage for the hosts.
East finally found the scoreboard with 2:02 left in the opening frame when Jackson Danielson split a pair of free throws but another 3 from Gore capped the quarter.
Gore was electric all evening, scoring a game-high 27 points on 11 of 19 shooting, giving the East defense fits all night as it failed to cut his drives or run him off the 3-point line.
“I think he’s their best player,” Brooks said of Gore. “He can score at every level and he’s very quick and can get to the rim. When double teams come he makes the right play and passes it. We went over how to guard him. We want him taking the tough contested outside shots and giving giving him space so we can keep him in front of us. We didn’t do that. We let him just penetrate and finish and penetrate and kick and he pretty much did that all night.”
The Warriors fared little better in the second quarter as the Beavers ripped a 9-0 run with contributions from R.J. Hairston, Will Looney and Gore to put the game to bed.
East was able to cut the deficit to 19 late in the fourth quarter but trailed by as many as 25 in the third.
“We knew they were going to come at (Lambert and Mitchell),” Brooks said. “They were going to try not to let those two score and make everyone else beat them. And that’s what we told the other guys coming in – ‘Look, they’re going to be on them, you’ve got to be ready to score. Whenever they drive and you get a kick you’ve got to be ready to shoot it and score it.’ We didn’t knock down any shots in the first half and we didn’t pass the ball well in the first half. Once they got into the double teams they kind of forced some shots up instead of penetrating and kicking it. We did that better in the second half and some of them still didn’t fall but we played a much better half the second half and we’ve got to build on that going to Chapmanville.”
With the win Bluefield avenges a loss in last year’s sectional title game and makes its path to the state tournament easier with a home game.
“That loss stood out in our minds and believe me, we did not want to lose here tonight,” Large said.
Email: tylerjackson@lootpress.com and follow on Twitter @tjack94
WE: 3 6 18 17 – 44
B: 20 11 20 16 – 67
Wyoming East
Garrett Mitchell 6, Jacob Howard 9, Jackson Danielson 14, Bryson Huff 12, Brendan Hoosier 1, Corey Hall 2
Bluefield
Kam’Ron Gore 27, Sencere Fields 5, Will Looney 7, Caleb Fuller 13, Brayden Fong 2, RJ Hairston 11, Gerrard Wade 2
3-point goals – WE: 3 (Howard 1, Huff 2); B: 6 (Gore 2, Fields 1, Looney 1, Fuller 2)