Gallery by Greg Barnett
Princeton – Two minutes into Friday’s game against Bluefield, Princeton was headed towards its second straight blowout loss against its county rival.
The Beavers jumped out to an 8-0 lead forcing Princeton into a timeout. From that point forward the Tiger defense tightened up, holding serve in a 63-61 win for Princeton in Princeton.
The Tigers finished the evening with 13 steals, baiting the Beavers into 20 turnovers that ultimately proved to be the difference. Nineteen of those giveaways came after the first timeout and the final three steals of the evening were each difference makers for the hosts.
The pivotal one came after Princeton took a 59-57 lead with 1:18 left. Britt Beasley nabbed the ensuing inbounds pass and scored three seconds later to extend the Tiger lead to 61-57. After Bluefield scored, Beasley forced the penultimate steal for the Tigers, knocking the ball out of Bluefield all-stater R.J. Hairston’s hands, allowing Princeton’s Gavin Stover to grab it and convert on a pair of free throws that made the difference.
“That’s funny, after the game (Beasley) kept saying ‘I told you I’d get my (defense) up,'” Princeton head coach Robb Williams said. “I was really on him in the first quarter. Kam’Ron (Gore) was penetrating and part of our decision making process was to slack off one of their guards and stop that penetration from Kam’Ron. And (Beasley) wasn’t doing that, he was staying too far out on that guard. And we wanted to do that. So I was really discussing that with him at timeouts and in between possessions and he listened. And then man, that was a huge steal under the basket to score right after we got those two points to get us to four. That was huge. That was a game breaker there.”
The aforementioned Gore methodically picked the Beavers apart from the jump. Less than four minutes into the game he had already tallied 12 points, capping off a three-point play to stake the Beavers to a 16-6 lead.
But the gut check came quickly.
Nik Fleming answered with a layup, followed with a steal and eventually nailed a 3 to cut the deficit to five. The Beavers steadied the surge and pushed their lead back to nine but a layup from Marquel Lowe and a pair of free throws from Beasley cut the deficit at 22-17 after a frame.
Turnovers again proved troublesome for the Beavers who were lackadaisical with their exchanges outside the 3-point line, giving the ball away eight times in the second quarter.
“Well anytime you turn the ball over you know it’s going to hurt you in the long run and that’s what happened tonight,” Bluefield head coach Buster Large said. “I mean at halftime their point guard (Beasley) had six steals. And you know, if you just keep turning the ball they’re gonna get second chances.”
Despite the slew of mistakes, the Beavers maintained the lead at the break thanks to a 25 percent (4 of 16) mark from the field from the hosts in the frame.
The scales finally tipped in the third after a pair of free throws and a layup from Koen Sartin tied the game at 38. Fleming followed with his own pair from the charity stripe, giving the Tigers their first lead of the game at the 5:06 mark of the third quarter. The teams battled to a 46-46 tie after three, setting up an eventful final frame the featured four ties and five lead changes.
The success through three quarters largely came from limiting Gore and Hairston after the early turbulence. Hairston finished with 13 points and 10 rebounds but had just seven points heading into the final frame. Gore was held to 10 points after scoring 12 in the first four minutes of the game.
“We felt like their guards were not going to score much on us,” Williams said. “And again, we felt like our guards were equally aggressive and a little bit bigger and we’re not very big at guard but our guards were more aggressive throughout watching film. Knowing them and knowing that we felt like we could push them out and try to keep the ball out of Gore’s hands. It goes back to trying to keep the ball out a certain guy’s hands and that worked for us. We didn’t play our normal 3-2 very often. We changed up a little bit with more of a man but a help man, similar but not quite the same. And that I think, was the difference. I think they probably expected us to play zone against them the entire game and we just decided not to do that tonight.”
Despite Beasley’s late heroics and Stover’s free throws, the Beavers were still alive. Hairston scored on a layup with 12 seconds to play to make 63-61 and forced to foul, the Beavers struck gold when the Tigers missed both free throws. Hairston grabbed the rebound but Stover made the final steal of the game, throwing ahead to Fleming to cement the victory.
“They played hard,” Large said. “This was a rivalry game and they were in the ball game the entire time. We just couldn’t – we would get up three or four and they come right back. And that happened several times. So we’re just gonna move on and we got tough game Monday. Greenbrier East and we turn around at play Mount View Tuesday and sectionals start Friday.”
Fleming (16), Stover (14), Beasley (12) and Sartin (10) all finished in double figures with Fleming adding 10 rebounds.
Gore led all scorers with 22.
B: 22 12 12 15 – 61
P: 17 12 17 17 – 63
Bluefield
Sencere Fields 5, Glen Keene 5, Kam’Ron Gore 22, RJ Hairston 13, Brett Samosky 5, EJ Washignton 7, Jack Hurt 4
Princeton
Nik Fleming 16, Gavin Stover 14, Gavin Brown 2, Britt Beasley 12, Marquel Lowe 4, Koen Sartin 10, Zayden Neely 5
T: 1111
SC: 11111
