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Wyoming East at Bluefield
Wyoming East (53) Vs. Bluefield (73)
By BRIAN WOODSON
Bluefield Daily Telegraph
BLUEFIELD — In the past two seasons, the Bluefield Beavers had played Wyoming East five times and lost them all.
It wouldn’t extend to six.
Anthony Eades scored 17 of his 26 points in the second half, and Lykel Collier contributed his normal all-around game with 21 points, seven assists, four rebounds and three steals, as No. 1 Bluefield defeated No. 2 Wyoming East 73-53 on Saturday afternoon at a full Ned Shott Gymnasium.
“I guess we did prove we are number one, everybody didn’t expect it,” Collier said. “Wyoming East used to come and beat us by 20 and we beat them by 20 so now we showed who is the number one team in double A in West Virginia.
“It feels pretty good to beat Wyoming East. They are cocky bunch and we just had to prove to them why we are the number one team in the state.”
Bluefield improved to 9-0 and should remain as the top Class AA team in the state when the new poll is released later this week. The Beavers return to Bluefield State on Wednesday to face Summers County.
“Maybe we deserve to be number one now, that remains to be seen,” said Bluefield head coach Buster Large, with a smile. “That is something you have to uphold every week because any time you can go down, you can get beat, you can have a bad game so we just have to keep working hard and keep focused.”
Michael Yost added 11 points, six rebounds and drew two charges, and Harley Trimble had eight points, six boards and a single charge for the Beavers, having decided minutes before the opening tip that he was available after injuring a knee during practice on Monday.
D.J. Edwards added five points off the bench.
“It was a total team effort, we knew we would have to get help big time, we needed help seven, eight deep tonight,” Large said. “I thought Harley played big coming off that knee injury. Lykel had a huge game, Anthony had a solid game, and we got very good participation off the bench from D.J. Edwards, and Ryan Shorter had some big rebounds.
“That is what it takes. Believe me, they have got a heck of a basketball team, we are just very happy to win. We were very thankful that we were able to get this one.”
Wyoming East (6-2) was paced by Marcus Schofield with 18 points — but just seven after the break — 15 from Luke Campbell and 14 by Taylor Smith while playing in a hostile atmosphere with a packed house and lots of noise.
“We are used to playing in these kind of games,” Wyoming East head coach Rory Chapman said. “Coming in I didn’t think that we would get beat like that, I knew there was the possibility of us being beat, but we broke down in the second half and they executed well and got up.
“They are really athletic, they played a great game.”
Bluefield withstood four lead changes during just over a minute of the second quarter with a pair of 3s by Eades and Collier to take a 37-34 lead into the break.
Michael Yost had seven first quarter points while Eades was held to a single 3 by tight Wyoming East defense, with the Beavers taking an 18-17 lead after the opening period.
“We knew it was going to be tough early going and we just had to make some adjustments and settle down,” Large said.
The teams exchanged leads five times in the opening half, with the Beavers led by Collier with 12 points and nine from Eades. Luke Campbell and Marcus Schofield had 11 apiece for the Warriors, who were 3-8 from the free throw line in the first half, and 8-16 for the game.
The Beavers were 15-18 from the charity stripe.
Schofield tallied seven points in the second quarter, but was held to seven in the second half.
“We worked real hard on playing defense on Schofield and Campbell,” Eades said. “That is all we worked on all week and it paid off.”
“The Schofield kid is one of the best players in the state, we had to help on him, early on we didn’t do that,” added Large. “He is just so big, strong and physical, but in the second half I think that was the key was slowing him down and we were able to get out in the running lanes in the second half.
“The coaches made some great adjustments here at halftime. I thought my assistant coaches did a tremendous job of coaching and getting this team ready.”
Bluefield jumped on Wyoming East immediately after the break, with Yost scoring off an assist by Trimble, while Eades drove three times to the basket, and Collier added another field goal during a 10-0 run to build a double-digit lead the Beavers would never lose.
“We wanted to come out aggressive,” Eades said. “The first three minutes of the third quarter are real important so that is what we tried to do.”
Eades was held in check early before scoring 11 points in the third quarter, and six in the final period. He finished with four 3s, while Collier added two.
“I just got that out of my mind and just kept going to play,” Eades said. “My teammates were getting me the ball real good, and we just played as a team.”
Collier did more than enough to offset the early attention on Eades, providing key plays on both sides of the floor.
“I knew coming out everybody was going to try and key up on him, and then everybody was playing back so I was just going to try and create for myself and create for others for scoring,” Collier said. “If I create and they guard me, Anthony will be wide open.”
Wyoming East cut the lead to 11, at 47-36, on basket by Schofield with 4:50 left in the period, but Eades answered with a 3, and the Beavers took a 56-42 lead after three quarters.
“They scored the first (10) points of the third quarter,” Chapman said. “I talk to our kids all the time about how important the first three or four minutes of the second half is.
“They came out and put the ball in the hole and we missed some easy ones. They just did a better job than us offensively down the stretch than we did too.”
It didn’t get any easier, with a trio of technicals — two on Wyoming East — called with 5:58 to play, and the Beavers continued to build the margin to 23 before settling for the final 20-point margin, which was a surprise to Collier.
“I didn’t expect us to win like this because it was number one and number two, but we came in real hot in the first half and in the second half we came out real hot and they just slowed it down,” Collier said. “Then we were just playing our game on defense and we just kept pushing it.”
Wyoming East, which has been a fixture in the Class AA state tournament in the past decade, will get Bluefield at home next month. Until then, there’s plenty of basketball to be played.
“We have got to regroup, that is one game, that makes us 6-2 on the season, but our schedule is brutal,” Chapman said. “We have Oak Hill coming up and Woodrow Wilson coming up so we can’t sit around and pout about this, we have got to move on.”
The same goes for Bluefield. Summers County is next, followed by six straight games on the road.
“There is a lot ways to go, we just have to keep working,” Eades said.
Collier added, “We’ve got to keep going. We’ve got Summers County coming up next and we have to worry about them and take it one game at a time.”
—Contact Brian Woodson
at bwoodson@bdtonline.com

at Ned Shott Gymnasium
WYOMING EAST (6-2)
Luke Campbell 5 2-4 15, Marcus Schofield 8 2-4 18, Travis McKinney 0 0-0 0, Josh Tunstalle 0 2-4 2, Taylor Smith 6 2-4 14, Austin Canada 2 0-0 4, Christian Hedinger 0 0-0 0, Kyle Smith 0 0-0 0. Totals 21 8-16 53.
BLUEFIELD (9-0)
K.J. Manns 1 0-0 2, Harley Trimble 4 0-0 8, Lykel Collier 7 5-7 21, Michael Yost 4 3-4 11, Anthony Eades 9 4-4 26, Que Amaker 0 0-0 0, Ryan Shorter 0 0-0 0, D.J. Edwards 1 3-3 5, Jordan Ponder 0 0-0 0, David Woodrum 0 0-0 0. Totals 26 15-18 73.
Wyoming East...................18 16 8 11 — 53
Bluefield.............................17 20 19 17 — 73
3-point goals: WE 3 (Campebll 3); BF 6 (Eades 4, Collier 2). Total fouls: WE 17; BF 17. Fouled out: none. Technicals: Tunstalle, Eades, Wyoming East bench. JV: WE 64 (Brett Bolling 12, Tyler Lester 11); 49 (David Woodrum 12, Trevor Mullins 11).
Game Scoreboard
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 OT SCORE
Wyoming East 17 17 8 11 0 53
Bluefield 18 19 19 17 0 73
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