Gallery by Greg Barnett
Class AAA No. 1 Shady Spring has played just one home game this season but claimed another tiger den Tuesday night.
The visiting Tigers from Raleigh County blistered the nets, hitting on 57 percent of their shots in a 76-60 victory over the host Tigers of Princeton.
The Shady offense found success from all over the court hitting on 55 percent (18 of 33) of its shots inside the arc and an astounding 63 percent (10 of 16) from beyond it. The visitors’ most productive quarters were the second and fourth where they shot 70 and 69 percent, respectively.
“I think that’s what we’ve really been pushing,” Shady Spring head coach Ronnie Olson said. “You know people probably could turn on a couple of early games and say, ‘They’re awful on offense.’ And we were. 
I have people saying, ‘Coach, you gotta put sets in,’ and I said, ‘Listen, we were built in our foundation, which was our defense and we had been pushing offense. I don’t think that they really played awful defense tonight. The offense we’ve been pushing that. (Assistant coach Shawn) Radford’s been really, really adamant about valuing the basketball, making good cuts, and he came to me and said, ‘Coach, we’re holding our guys accountable on the defensive end and and you’re doing it,’ but we had to start moving to offensive end as well.
“We’ve been really detail-oriented in practice and really breaking down film. We’ve tried to really push the offensive side as well. For them to only been playing a couple games together and to play like that and then the subs coming in. 
I mean, it felt like they didn’t skip a beat. I know there was one little lull that I probably should have took a time out there in the third quarter but other than that, I mean, that’s gonna happen and I still felt like we were good, you know?”
Princeton experienced much of the same success Shady did, hitting at a 52 percent mark from the field but that percentage was dinged by the struggles from outside the arc. While Shady canned 10 3-pointers, Princeton shot an icy 15 percent (2 of 13) from downtown.
“We vacillated from two different type of defenses trying to stop them,” Princeton head coach Robb Williams said. “They’re like a Greenbrier East type team in the sense that they’re guard-heavy or smaller in size, but more slashers and speedy and where we’re a little bit bigger and slower foot sometimes that makes a difference hitting the corners. A lot of their shots early were by Eli (Sexton) up top. I think you had three straight 3s up top, which really is not indicative of any of the defenses that we teach our players. I’m not disappointed in the effort for three quarters.”
The barrage from deep was consistent for the visitors who needed help from their bench. Plagued with foul trouble early, Shady called upon freshman Eli Sexton to give his team spot minutes early and he answered the ball, nailing a pair of 3s in the opening frame, scoring 13 points in the opening half.
His contributions helped Shady take a 38-28 advantage into the break.
The advantage grew to 13 midway through the third quarter and remained at 12 after a Khi Olson 3. Trailing 47-35 after a layup from Olson, the hosts went to work, closing the quarter on an 11-2 run with reserve Nick Bailey adding five points in the backend of the frame.
The stretch allowed the hosts to climb out of the pit and position themselves to tame the opposing Tigers in the fourth.
Instead Shady’s offense microwaved and nuked Princeton.
A 16-2 run over the first four-and-a-half minutes of the fourth quarter that saw Olson nail a pair of 3s and Williams pitch in seven of his game-high 24 points all but closed the book on Princeton’s comeback bid. It was all part of a quarter that saw the visitors hit on 11 of 16 field goal attempts (69 percent).
“I feel like it’s on me and maybe shame on us because we gotta learn to put teams away,” Olson said. “I kept saying to value the basketball and I felt like we weren’t doing it in the third quarter because we were up 11. We had a possession where we could have cut it to 13 and I thought we didn’t make the extra pass, then we come down and make two possessions where we didn’t kick it and we lost the ball. Before you know it, 11 is nine, seven and they hit a 3 and it’s a four-point game. I just think we didn’t have the killer instinct in the third. 
They played with a ton more energy when it was only a one-point game. There’s always room for improvement and I think coming out of the half, we finally came out of the first quarter all year, we’ve been awful in the first quarter and we’ve been good in the second half. This time, we decided we were just gonna kind of coast through it. Eleven is not enough. 
If you’re up 30, I get it, but 11’s not enough, especially at this point in the season where we gotta get better.
“I didn’t think we had the killer instinct, but in the fourth, this was a game, and I know our fans and I know our parents, but this, to us in the locker room, was the biggest game so far of our season. Taking nothing away from the Woodrow game or anything like that, but man, this is a regional game. With the new regional alignment we knew how big a game this was, we wanna be the No. 1 seed. We wanna host. You got those games circled on your calendar for a reason. (Princeton’s) good. I thought they had Greenbar East beat and they beat Summit.”
Williams’ 24 points led all scorers and he achieved that line on 10 of 13 shooting. Sexton (15), Olson (14) and Jalon Bailey (10) all scored in double figures for Shady as well with Sexton and Olson shooting 80 percent and 83 percent, respectively.
Zayden Neeley led Princeton with 17 points in the loss on 8 of 13 shooting (62 percent) while Daniel Jennings and Brad Mossor added 12 points each on 83 and 60 precent shooting, respectively.
SS: 16 22 17 27 – 76
P: 14 14 18 14 – 60
Shady Spring
Jack Williams 24, Eli Sexton 15, Brody Radford 2, Khi Olson 14, Jalon Bailey 10, Gabe Short 9, Braedy Johnston 2
Princeton
Britt Beasley 9, Bradley Mossor 12, Jayce Gum 4, Nick Bailey 6, Zayden Neeley 17, Daniel Jennings 12
