Gallery by Heather Belcher
Charleston – With its first Class AA championship berth in eight years on the line, Bluefield dusted off a familiar album and played all of the hits.
Using their infamous pressure defense, the Beavers held off a second-half St. Marys rally Friday morning in the Class AA semifinals, beating the Blue Devils 60-57 in the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center.
With the win the Beavers advance to the Class AA title game where they’ll play Poca on Saturday at 12:30 p.m.
The difference, as it is in many Bluefield games, was the Beavers’ ability to turn St. Marys over, making the Blue Devils uncomfortable from the jump.
“They created a lot of issues in case you didn’t notice out there,” St. Marys head coach Mark Barnhart said. “Breaking their pressure, it’s not easy. I’m proud of these gentlemen sitting beside because I’m not sure that in our regular season we’ve seen pressure like that all year. We watched them play Wyoming East who I thought had a very nice team and they gave them fits with it.”
The Beavers pressure was effective early and often but came through when they needed it most. It helped forced 18 turnovers which led to 19 points, serving as the equalizer with St. Marys shooting 47 percent from the field to Bluefield’s 37 percent.
It was none more effective than during a third-quarter stretch where St. Mary’s outscored the Beavers 10-3 to trim a nine-point halftime deficit to two at 38-36.
From there, using different pressure looks, the Beavers forced three consecutive turnovers that led to six straight points for Chance Johnson, all in a 50 second span.
“They changed it up and we knew they would,” Barnhart said. “It’s easier to say it and it’s harder to take a timeout every time they do and try to change it on the fly but they do a great job of disguising it and changing it up on you and that makes it tough. That was a critical point. It’s not easy and you go over all of this stuff to be ready but you can’t change your press breaker always on the fly but again our bigs came up and tried to alleviate the pressure the first half.”
The previous St. Marys surge was welcomed after a first half where the Blue Devils appeared to be overmatched.
After Grant Barnhart nailed a 3 to give the Blue Devils a 5-4 advantage, a Johnson layup and a pair of Flack free throws forced a timeout. Out of the pause, little changed with R.J Hairston tipping a rebound back in and scoring on an assist from Flack the next trip down the court. A jumper from the sophomore big extended his personal run to 6-0 and a 3-pointer from Kamron Gore with under a minute to go eventually pushed it to 21-10.
With the Blue Devils fading, Hairston delivered a pair of free throws and a 3-pointer in the second quarter that pushed the lead to 30-16. Back-to-back buckets cut it to 10, prompting a Bluefield timeout.
Out of the huddle, the Beavers ran offensive sets for the next 1:34, patiently setting up a Flack 3-pointer.
“We’ve matured as a team,” Hairston said. “That was the old Bluefield. We’re not the old Bluefield. The old us, we would’ve jacked up shots but we became patient now.”
A tip in at the buzzer spurred a 10-0 St. Marys run that spanned the second and third quarters, getting the Blue Devils back in the thick of the game.
They stayed there, trimming the deficit to to two with 4:27 left in the fourth on the strength of a pair of Brandon Lawhon 3s.
But when the Beavers needed points Hairston was there answer the call, scoring eight of his team-high 21 points in the fourth. Four of those points came at the free throw line but the other two came at the rim after some encouragement from Flack.
“R.J. was quicker (than his matchup),” Flack said. “I knew when we got in space R.J. could beat him off the dribble.”
“When I saw my opportunity I took it,” Hairston added.
After Hairston’s layup with 48 seconds pushed the lead to 56-52 the advantage never fell below a possession until Grant Barnhart hit a half court shot at the buzzer to account for the final three points.
With the victory Bluefield advances to the Class AA title game for the first time since 2014 when it won the second of back-to-back titles.
“A great opportunity to represent Mercer County schools and the City of Bluefield in a state championship game which we haven’t been back since 2014,” Bluefield coach Buster Large said. “That was the biggest thing I wanted to do was get back here and have a chance to play on Championship Saturday and take a state championship back to Bluefield which is going to be very difficult tomorrow.”
Hairston led Bluefield with 21 points while Johnson finished with a double-double, scoring 10 points and hauling in 11 boards – seven of them on the offensive glass.
Grant Barnhart led St. Marys and all scorers with 23 points in the loss.
Email: tylerjackson@lootpress.com and follow on Twitter @tjack94
— Tyler Jackson (@TJack94) March 18, 2022
