Gallery by Heather Belcher
Princeton 93, Capital 45
Saturday afternoon Princeton was still steaming from a loss Tuesday night to Class AAA No. 1 Shady Spring. Unfortunately for Capital, they were in the firing line for the Tigers at the New River CTC Tournament.
Princeton ran over the visitors from Charleston like a runaway dump truck.
Building a commanding 22-2 lead that was 31-9 after eight minutes, the Tigers mauled the Cougars 93-45.
“We played really good for a half against Shady Spring and we were obviously disappointed with that game. We wanted to make a statement tonight,” Princeton head coach Robb Williams said. “We don’t get much respect on our end of the state. Playing Capital and beating Capital handily was a big game for us. We didn’t expect this result, but we usually start out pretty strong.”
When the halftime horn sounded, Princeton had forced 18 turnovers and had 11 steals.
“We thought they would be really, really quick because they were guard heavy,” Williams said. “We thought they would give our press some trouble, but we were able to trap them and we kept doing it.”
Princeton dominated the second half and ended the game with 83 shot attempts and shot 57 percent from the field.
Capital was limited to 41 shot attempts and ended with 34 turnovers on the night.
“We made more shots than they attempted,” Williams said. “We were fortunate that we were shooting well and getting the ball to the hole. We are a very good team in transition. We were able to stay in transition a lot and that made a big difference.”
Princeton placed four players in double figures led by Chase Hancock who scored 23 points and had seven rebounds. Nic Fleming scores 21 and had five rebounds while handing out four assists.
Koen Sartin had a double-double with 17 points and 10 rebounds. Kris Joyce flirted with a triple-double scoring 17 points along with eight assists.
Princeton, who sits just outside the AAAA top-10 hosts AA No. 1 Bluefield Tuesday.
