By GEORGE THWAITES
Bluefield Daily Telegraph
PRINCETON — After such long layoffs due to the winter weather, both PikeView and Princeton boys basketball teams were pretty rusty at the tip-off.
There was enough competitive fire between them to ensure that there wasn’t any icy build-up, however.
Hunter Hill and Seth Meadows scored 18 points apiece and the Panthers effected a three-game sweep of the Tigers with a 65-49 win at Coach Ralph Ball Court on Thursday.
“It was the kind of atmosphere that this game has had all three times we’ve played,” said PikeView head coach Colton Fix. “We’d both been off for a while and the kids were itching to get back to the game. It was a hard-fought, great rivalry basketball game.”
Princeton also had the emotional effects of Senior Night in play. With the Tigers trailing the whole of the fourth quarter, emotions started running extremely high.
With 2:47 remaining and the Panthers leading 48-40 after a Meadows 3, an official time out was called after friction appeared to be brewing between Tigers guard Colton Fix and Meadows.
“(The official) said this was a good game. He told us to keep it clean and just keep playing basketball,” said Meadows, who had seven rebounds and four steals.
Emotion finally got the better of Princeton after Logan Watkins spoke out of turn to an official following a no-call that left him sprawling in the floor past the end line for several minutes. He got T’eed up for it.
Princeton trailed by six at the time of the technical foul. Despite trading free throws with Bryson Murphy for a push on the scoreboard, momentum was in PikeView’s hands for the remainder.
“I felt until we lost our composure, we were in the thick of things. We had a legitimate chance. They maintained their composure and we lost ours,” said Princeton head coach Ernie Gilliard.
Watkins finished with 12 points before fouling out and Fix finished with 11. Jacob Whittington had nine points for Princeton (6-8)
Todd Vest, Tyler Boyd and Wayne Brookman had nine points apiece for PikeView (11-4). Brookman had five rebounds, Vest had two assists and Boyd had two steals and two assists.
“I think Princeton likes competition and they hate it when somebody is better than them,” said Hill, who had eight rebounds, including three offensive boards. “They try to get all up on us and we show them how it is. They don’t like the fact that we’re the big dogs ... and we’ll beat them every time.”
Gililard was pleased with his team’s pressure defense, but needs them to be more patient running its offense
“We’ve got to get a little more efficient offensively. That’s going to come as a result of having ball movement and body movement. And being patient,” said Gilliard, whose squad has an immediate shot at redemption at home against Westside after the girls game with River View tonight.
“Sometimes we take shots out of frustration simply because the defense seems to be solid. We need to be a little more deliberate and patient and eventually we can break some defenses down,” he said.
PikeView is gearing up to wrap up the regular season with eight games over nine days. The gantlet begins with Summers County on Saturday.

At Princeton High School
PIKEVIEW (11-4)
Todd Vest 4 1-2 9, Tyler Boyd 1 7-9 9, Seth Meadows 5 6-7 18, Hunter Hill 4 9-10 18, Tyler Cecil 1 0-0 2, Dakota Stilwell 0 0-0 0, Wayne Brookman 4 1-2 9. Totals 19 24-30 65.
PRINCETON (6-8)
Garrison Hartwell 0 0-0 0, Colton Fix 5-1 2 11, Jacob Whittington 3 2-2 9, Aaron McCabe 1 0-0 2, Jared Hamm 0 0-0 0, Cole Cochran 2 2-4 6, Bryson Murphy 2 2-2 5, Logan Watkins 6 0-3 12, Cade Fix 0 3-4 3, Drew Hopkins 0 0-0 0, L.J. Reed 0 0-0 0, Tanner Veneri 0 0-0 0. Totals 19 10-17 49.
PikeView.........9 14 15 27 — 65
Princeton.......11 9 14 15 — 49
3-point goals: PikeView 3 (Meadows 2, Hill), Princeton 1 (Whittington).