Last year’s regular season was a success for Princeton.
The Tigers were competitive and hosted a sectional tournament game but once they postseason rolled around they ran into a hot Beckley team, losing in the first round.
The game concluded the careers of Lay-Lay Wilburn and Ethan Parsons, leaving the Tigers with holes to fill coming into this season.
“I’d say we lost 85 percent of our scoring with Lay-Lay Wilburn and Ethan Parsons gone,” Princeton coach Robb Williams said. “We lost a big as well, so we lost a lot. We’ve got a lot to replace for sure.”
Williams does have some returners he excited about though. There’s a lot of youth on this year’s Princeton team but some experienced mixed in.
“Jon Wellman will hopefully get to see a lot of minutes for us,” Williams said. “He was injured early in the season and tried to make a comeback the last game of the season after breaking his elbow. We expect good things from him and he’s a senior. Chase Hancock is another one and we expect a lot out of him on the wing. He’s a shooter for us and we expect him to get us some points. Another individual who got a lot of playing time for us was Kris Joyce. He’s a point guard and two guard for us. We’re expecting him to get better and better. He was a sophomore who started for me last year.
“Going back to that, Chase was a sophomore as well. So we’ll have Wellman, Chase, Joyce and Grant Cochran who will be our inside presence. Grant is an all-state quarterback so we expect him to give us some toughness underneath. We were fortunate we got a young man that didn’t play for us last year and he looks pretty good in Aidan Ash, another big. He’s about 6-foot-5 and looks good in practices and our scrimmage.”
With a younger team, Williams believes the strength of his squad will be it’s depth.
“Well the talent is consistent,” Williams said. “We don’t have somebody lake a Lay-Lay or Parsons that’s just going to dominate at any second but we have individuals who all can produce for us. From one to ten we have guys that can produce. I like what we have in terms of the bench as well as the starters. We lack in size, we’re a small team and we’re a young team. We have five sophomore we’re dressing. This year will be a good test for us.”
Regardless of the youth, the goal remains the same for the Tigers – make the state tournament.
In a region loaded with powers such as George Washington and Beckley that goal becomes difficult but Williams believes it’s a achievable and would further be a great experience for a team that will likely be together beyond this season.
“Well being a young team, the goal is always to make it to states,” Williams said. “That’s the goal at Princeton or anywhere else. It’s a tough road for us. We’ve got some really talented teams in our section and region. But our goal is to make it to the state tournament. It would be good for our young guys to get that but we’re taking it one game at a time. Again, we’re young team. You’re going to make mistakes early and hopefully learn from those. We have potential to be a really solid team.”
