By BRIAN WOODSON
Bluefield Daily Telegraph
RICHLANDS, Va. — It was ‘Pick Your Poison’ night, and Richlands had a Ball.
Scottie Ball scored 29 points, and his Richlands teammates canned 18 3s, leading the Blue Tornado to an NBA-like 107-90 victory over PikeView on Friday night at Richlands Middle School.
Richlands (5-9) made it three wins in a row, all this week, with a fourth game on tap tonight at Twin Valley.
“That is the fourth one this week,” Richlands head coach Jody Fuller said. “We have won three. We need to finish the week.”
Ball started fast, scoring 12 first quarter points and had 21 at the break, as the Blue Tornado led 52-37, scoring 26 points in each period. Richlands made 50 percent of its 3-point attempts, led by Cody Fuller, who had seven 3s and 27 points, while Luke Phillips had five 3s to top out at 16.
Landon Lowe added 10 points for Richlands, and Grant Herndon had nine points, all on 3s.
“When the ball goes through the net everything looks better, everyone gets to smile a little more,” Fuller said. “PikeView is a very good team and I was really nervous about them coming in here.
“They have got a really good resume and I know some of those kids, I know they can play so I am definitely glad to get a win here tonight.”
PikeView (7-5) scored 90 points of its own, but trailed 26-13 after one quarter, and could never any closer than 10 — at 55-45 with 6:53 to go in the third quarter — the rest of the way.
“I felt like we really had trouble getting in our offensive rhythm,” PikeView head coach Colton Thompson said. “We didn’t play well offensively or defensively tonight, obviously the defense was a struggle for us giving up 107 points.
“Offensively we just couldn’t get in a rhythm. Once we got something going, we would always take a step backwards and kind of stall out.”
Much of that was due to Richlands, led by Ball, who controlled the paint, continuing a torrid week that included 26 points against Grundy and another 21 in a win over Tazewell. He had 11 field goals and was 7 for 11 from the charity stripe.
“Scottie Ball can just do stuff that nobody else can do athletically,” Fuller said. “He has such body control in the air that he can still finish with contact, he is just a real talent.”
It wasn’t just Ball. Richlands had four 3s in each of the first two quarters, and just kept firing away, and making them.
“Our kids have the ability to do that though, but you aren’t going to do that every night,” Fuller said. “We still have got a lot of work on the defensive end to do. We are working on it, that is all we can do.”
Shoot like that, and any team will have a tough time keeping up.
“It was pick your poison,” said Thompson, whose Panthers will host Richlands next Thursday. “...I really feel like (Ball) is getting into his rhythm. He is going to be tough for anybody...He was just really physical and our defense, it is tough to defend.
“Once we did get a little bit of containment on him, you kick it and you are trying to recover and play from the inside out. We knew they had shooters everywhere, but when they have got the inside guy going and the outside guy going, it is really difficult to try and pick your poison.”
PikeView made nine 3s of its own, led by Seth Meadows, who had five 3s and finished with 28 points. Jason Weitzel led all scorers with 31 points, including three 3s, while making 14 for 20 from the free throw line. Tyler Ruble added 24 points, including 21 after halftime.
Richlands was 11 for 16 in the opening quarter to build a 26-10 first quarter lead, and the Panthers had to play from behind, and never could get the score into single digits in a game that also featured 59 fouls, 69 free throws, one technical and two players leaving with five fouls, including Ball.
“It seemed like every time we would get a little flow going we took two steps back,” Thompson said. “It was a battle, it is a bad loss and we hate the loss and we are going to get into practice tomorrow and try to refocus to get ready for busy week next week.”
The lead grew to as much as 30, with a Herndon 3 putting Richlands over the century mark with 3:07 left in the game. PikeView was able to whittle the margin down to a more respectable 17.
“One thing is the kids didn’t quit, we kept playing until the horn,” Thompson said. “That is something we just keep stressing, quitting is one of those habits that once you do it, it is easy to do it over and over. We just tried to keep playing until the end.”
PikeView, which started the season at 4-0, has gone 3-5 since, with a home game with Shady Spring on tap for Wednesday.
“I don’t we have taken too much of a slide, we were really good early, but everybody is getting better, it is getting in that midseason form,” Thompson said. “We are trying to make sure we adjust not only for midseason form, but keep getting ready and be ready for the postseason and play our best basketball come sectionals and be ready to play then.
“I feel like everybody in this region on both sides of the state line is just playing really good basketball right now.”
Richlands, which will visit Twin Valley tonight, and play Graham, Lebanon and PikeView again next week, have had few breathers this season.
“I will go out on a limb, maybe it is my fault, but we had the toughest schedule this side of Roanoke,” Fuller said. “It was every night we were scrapping on someone that is really legit and hopefully that will pay dividends.”
“It is starting to come,” he added. “If we can get this thing rolling at the right time, maybe we can get jelled here before the tournament.”
bwoodson@bdtonline.com
/ Twitter @bdtwoodson

at Richlands Middle School
PIKEVIEW (7-5)
Seth Wood 1 0-0 3, Seth Meadows 7 9-9 28, Tyler Ruble 11 2-7 24, Jason Weitzel 7 14-20 31, Takota Bailey 0 0-0 0, Austin Hazelwood 1 0-0 2, Hunter Hill 0 2-4 2, Wayne Brookman 0 0-0 0. Totals 27 27-40 90.
RICHLANDS (5-9)
Luke Phillips 5 1-2 16, Cody Fuller 8 4-4 27, Ethan Ratliff 3 0-0 8, Scottie Ball 11 7-11 29, Landon Lowe 4 2-3 10, Grant Herndon 3 0-0 9, Will Moir 0 1-4 1, Austin Atkinson 1 0-0 3, MacKenzie Smith 0 0-3 0, Ben Thomason 0 0-0 0, Brennan Richardson 0 2-2 2, Caleb Altizer 1 0-0 2. Totals 36 17-29 107.
PikeView.......................13 24 25 28 — 90
Richlands......................26 26 31 24 — 107
3-point goals: PV 9 (Meadows 5, Weitzel 1, Wood 1); RL 18 (Fuller 7, Phillips 6, Herndon 3, Ratliff 2, Atkinson 1). Total fouls: PV 25; RL 34. Fouled out: Ball, Moir. Technical: Wood. JV—PV 53-46.