Gallery by Greg Barnett
Bluefield – The brand new court at the Brushfork Armory wasn’t the only change in the building Saturday.
Sporting an 0-6 record at the venue dating back to his first season in 2016-17, Shady Spring head coach Ronnie Olson led his team to their first win there against the host Bluefield, notching a 48-34 victory against the Class AA No. 1 Beavers Saturday evening in the Lil Tony Memorial Classic.
Sixteen hours after edging Class A No. 1 James Monroe, the Class AAA No. 1 Tigers finished the sweep by suffocating the Beavers’ offense, notching a milestone victory for the program.
“I was a little emotional after the game and I’m not going to lie because this game means a lot to me personally,” a teary-eyed Olson said. “I’m not one of those coaches to say this is like every other game because I have the utmost respect for this program. But this team has held us back from going to be where we’re at.
“They put us back 2-3 years. It means a lot to me and this week, the way we played last night, I’ve had a lot of people close to me even question my guys and it just meant a lot because I don’t falter on those guys. I know what they’ve got inside of them. We’ve been a little slow, we’ve started a little sluggish and looked a little off … Hell you could’ve written and said Shady would lose today with the way they played against James Monroe but they got my back and I appreciate the way they came out and played.”
The sluggish start plagued the Tigers for the third time this week after they led Princeton by one point on Tuesday and trailed James Monroe Friday night at the half. A 4 of 15 shooting performance from Shady in the first quarter helped the host Beavers establish a 12-9 advantage after a frame and a 14-9 one after a Kam’Ron Gore layup early in the second.
“I felt pretty good when we went up 14-9,” Bluefield coach Buster Large said. “That’s when they went on a run. Good teams find a way to get back in it and they did. They got up on us and never looked back.”
Consecutive 3s from Cameron Manns and and Jack Williams jumped an 11-0 Shady run with Braden Chapman adding a layup and Ammar Maxwell another trey.
A pair of Sencere Fields free throws quelled the run but Maxwell, a junior who hadn’t played in the Brushfork Armory, found his spark. Scoring just 16 points across the Tigers’ previous two games this week, Maxwell scored eight of his game-high 19 points in the second quarter adding a 3-point play and layup that gave the Tigers a 27-18 advantage at the break.
“It means a lot to coach because in past years Bluefield’s knocked them out. We had to come out and punch them in the face,” Maxwell said. ” It hurt watching them get knocked out and I couldn’t do anything. Now I can actually help them get past them. I came to every Bluefield game when I was in middle school.”
During Shady’s second-quarter surge the Beavers struggled to find anything on offense. All-staters Caleb Fuller and R.J. Hairston were bottled up after scoring 10 of their team’s 12 points in the opening quarter.
Hairston, who had six in the opening frame, scored just once more later in the fourth quarter, taking two shots outside of the first quarter. That came in part because of Shady’s defense which started denying him the ball in the post.
“That’s all Jaedan (Holstein),” Olson said. “I challenged Jaedan and said ‘Jaedan, you had three rebounds last night.’ All he did was shake his head and say ‘I got you coach.’ He came out and had seven first-half rebounds. He was the difference on the glass and we were disspointed we got out-rebounded last night.”
“We went about four or five minutes without scoring and you cannot do that,” Large said. “But there’s a reason for that too. They’re tall and long and play good defense. They’re a great high school basketball team that’s going to go deep into March.”
A 3 from Will Looney and a Fuller layup helped the Beavers cut the deficit to five in the third quarter but a 3 from Braden Chapman and later a layup from Manns pushed the lead to 10 before the end of the third quarter and it never fell below double digits the rest of the way.
“I know you get tired of me but it’s good defense,” Olson sad. “If you play good defense eventually offense will come. I keep saying to control what you can control and worry about what you can worry about and the rest will be taken care of and it did. We continue to play tough in the half court and make it tough to run their stuff and kept them in front of us. I knew eventually we’d start hitting some shots. We’re really starting to come alive on offense and you could see it there in the second and third quarter.”
Fuller led Bluefield with 11 points while Maxwell paced Shady with 19.
Shady improves to 6-3 and will host Class AAA No. 8 Winfield on Tuesday. Bluefield (5-1) will travel to Princeton on Tuesday.
Email: tylerjackson@lootpress.com and follow on Twitter @tjack94
SS: 9 18 8 13 – 48
B: 12 6 7 9 – 34
Shady Spring
Braden Chaman 6, Ammar Maxwell 19, Cole Chapman 5, Jack Williams 3, Jaedan Holstein 6, Cam Manns 9
Bluefield
Kam’Ron Gore 8, Sencere fields 2, Will Looney 5, Caleb Fuller 11, RJ Hairston 8
3-point goals – SS: 6 (B. Chapman 1, Maxwell 2, C. Chapman 1, J. Williams 1); B: 2 (Looney, Fuller)
