By BOB REDD
Bluefield Daily Telegraph
BRUSHFORK — The Bluefield Beavers jumped out to a big lead and then held on for a 69-64 victory over the Princeton Tigers before a near-capacity crowd Friday night at the Brushfork Armory.
“We are very happy to win, very happy with how hard our kids played,” said Bluefield head coach Buster Large. “We did the things we had to do in the fourth quarter to win he game, but there are also some areas we need to improve on.”
Princeton head coach Ernie Gilliard said, “Our kids came our and fought. I am extremely pleased and proud with the way they fought, especially dealing with the adversity of this being our fourth game in five days. We have probably logged 500 miles or so, a lot of late nights and these kids put that behind them, came out, fought, and played hard.”
Ten seconds into the game Lykel Collier, who set the BHS record for games played at 94 when he took to the court, breaking the record set by Dexter Moore (2004-07), nailed a three. Seconds later Michael Yost fired a three to make it 6-0. Yost’s putback pushed it to 8-0 and Bluefield opened a 12-2 lead in the first two minutes of action.
“This is by far his best game since we have had him (Yost) back,” Large said. “The conditioning he has done the last five to seven days is starting to take effect now. He’s got a lot more energy and those big threes really helped us.”
Anthony Eades’ layup with 2:15 in the first gave Bluefield a nine point lead and also made him the career scoring leader at Bluefield High School. Eades came into the game with 1,585 points and that basket pushed him past Moore who had 1,586 in his career at BHS.
Aaron Ferguson was the Princeton offense in the quarter as he hit a pair of jumpers, made a pair of baskets in the paint and sank four free throws. Bluefield led 21-14 at the end of one.
Bluefield’s pressing defense and three point shooting spelled doom for the Tigers. Eades scored 14 in the quarter, including three from behind the arc. For Princeton scoring came from Jay Palmer and Zen Clements who each tallied five in the second stanza. The Beavers lead grew as high as 17 and the home team carried a 43-31 lead into the intermission.
The Tigers began to claw back into the game in the third quarter. In the first two minutes Princeton was within eight, but Bluefield extended the lead back to 13 on two buckets by D.J. Edwards and another three by Collier. Then came another Tiger charge.
A three ball by Ian Southcott and a three point play by Austin O’Dell with 1:44 left in the third made it a five point game, 50-45. It was a quarter where the Princeton big men, Clements and Ferguson, dominated on both ends of the court.
“All year long our bigs have been pretty solid for us and they have been a scoring force for us,” Gilliard said. “We felt it would be in our best interest to use that. Clements was playing well tonight and we went with him. Ferguson did a real nice job of hitting his jump shot. That’s our strength so we have to use that and go with that.”
Eades hit a three at the buzzer and Bluefield was on top 55-47 as the fourth quarter began.
“Give credit to them (Princeton),” Large said. “At one time in the third quarter we had two field goals with about two or three minutes to go. This is a rivalry game. I thought it was a well-played game by both teams, a lot of good sportsmanship exhibited by both teams and fans.”
Bluefield maintained a five to seven point advantage for most of the final period. The Tigers got to within four with 2:20 to go when Jay Palmer canned a three and got to within four with under a minute to go on a put back by Ferguson that made it 65-61. Bluefield, however made four-of-four from the foul line to seal the victory. O’Dell’s three with four seconds left was not enough and Bluefield escaped with their second win of the season over their Mercer County rivals.
“It’s nine straight wins for us and we are starting to get some steam down the stretch,” Large said. That’s what it’s all about. We’re trying to get better for tournament time.”
Eades led the Beavers and all scorers with 25 points. Yost added 16 and Collier 13.
Ferguson paced Princeton with 22, Clements tallied 13 and Palmer 12.
Bluefield hosts PikeView this afternoon with the varsity game tipping off at approximately 2:00.
The Tigers have lost two of their last three games, one to MSAC power Capital and to No. 3 Class AA Bluefield, both by single digits. Gilliard talked about those performances.
“We are still optimistic and we actually feel good,” Gilliard commented. “These kids realize that they are capable of the things that we are asking them to do that will help them be successful. What we continue to ask them is surrender their will to us, buy into what we are telling them, keep working at it and good things will happen. We are feeling good about this and hopefully we can continue to build on it.”
Princeton wraps up regular season play at Nitro on Thursday.

At Brushfork Armory
PRINCETON (7-12)
Ian Southcott 2 0-0 6, Mason Kroll 1 0-0 2, Jay Palmer 3 4-5 12, Zen Clements 6 1-2 13, Ashton O’Dell 3 1-1 9, Logan McKinney 0 0-0 0, Aaron Ferguson 9 4-6 22, Totals 24 10-14 64.
BLUEFIELD (17-2)
Dakoda Smalls 0 0-0 0, D.J. Edwards 3 1-2 7, Anthony Eades 9 3-3 25, Lykel Collier 3 5-7 13, Michael Yost 6 0-0 16, Jordan Ponder 2 0-0 4, Corey Coppola 2 0-0 4, Matthew Woodrum 0 0-0 0, Azir Price 0 0-0 0, Jordan Huckleberry 0 0-0 0, Totals 25 9-12 69.
Princeton........................14 17 16 17 — 64
Bluefield..........................21 22 12 14 — 69
3-point goals: P - 6 (Southcott 2, Palmer 2, O’Dell 2); B - 10 (Eades 4, Collier 2, Yost 4).
Fouled out: None. Technical fouls: None.