Gardner – On a night where Princeton was missing numerous contributors and its head coach, an unlikely hero stepped to the forefront for the Tigers.
Jack Hurt scored 14 of his 16 points in the second half Wednesday as Princeton rallied from a 10-point deficit in the second half to topple county and regional rival PikeView 68-64 in Gardner.
With head coach Robb Williams in Morgantown and starters Wyatt Cline and Brad Mossor serving suspensions stemming from ejections against Oak Hill last week, the Tigers needed a spark and Hurt provided just that with seven of his 16 points coming in the final frame.
“He had a tough first half,” Princeton assistant coach Devon Williams said. “I sat him down at halftime and told him you’ve got to wake up. He’s a new addition to our team due to some legal issues he had with the WVSSAC so this is his third game with us.
“He’s still trying to get into the swing of things and of course he was practicing with us the whole time so practice and game play is completely different. So very proud of Jack. His second half was enough to get us on our run that we took and we won the game.”
“It felt like every shot he hit was a big shot and unfortunately he hit most of them,” PikeView head coach Brett Tolliver said. “He’s not a kid that’s been there all season. We played them the first time and he wasn’t there. They’re a little bit of a different team with him. I think they’re probably better offensively with him and it adds a shooter. When you have Jayce being able to do what he does, being physical down low and you add another shooter, it’s difficult to guard.”
Princeton’s Jayce Gum pieced together another dominant scoring performance for the Tigers, netting a game-high 36 points in the win, including the Tigers’ first 12 of the night and 22 in the second half.
“He’s a stud man,” Williams said. “I tell him all the time he’s the best rebounder I’ve seen all season. He’s hard to handle down there and rarely misses around the basket. He struggled a little bit from the free throw line, which in the weeks prior we fixed but he’s a handful. When he plays how he knows how to play he’s a lot to handle. We’re fortunate to have him.”
PikeView shot 63 percent (17-for-27) inside the arc to power its offense, getting 27 points from Ryan Robinette but the Panthers’ inability to secure the boards crushed them. They were out-rebounded 32-20, yielding 15 offensive rebounds, none more crippling then the one allowed to Hurt after a free throw miss with the Tigers ahead 67-64 with under 30 seconds to play.
It sent Hurt back to the charity stripe for the final point and a two-possession lead.
“I think it happened twice,” Tolliver said. “He misses a free throw and we had missed an opportunity to get a defensive rebound before. We get a rebound there and you have an opportunity to get a timeout, draw something up, hit a 3 and go into overtime but unfortunately that summarizes the game. We weren’t able to get enough rebounds and enough stops.”
Behind the hot hand of Robinette, the hosts jumped out to a 7-0 lead, making it stick at 12-10 after a quarter. Robinette maintained efficiency in the second frame, connecting on a layup and 3 to push the advantage back to seven at 19-12. The lead later ballooned to 11 points following a pair of Tyler Murray free throws but sat at 34-26 at the break.
Behind a pair of third quarter 3s from Gum and another from Hurt, the Tigers erased a 10-point deficit in the frame to pull within two at 47-45.
Then the tide turned.
Hurt and Gum went back-to-back from downtown, kicking off a 14-3 run to open the fourth quarter that shot the Tigers ahead 59-50.
“I think we threw the press at the them which sped them up,” Williams said. “Which in turn had them playing the way we like to play. As we were able to make some shots we pulled them out of that zone and they went to man which is what we we’re looking for and I think a lot of that fourth quarter was predicated on that. They went to man and we were able to take advantage of our mismatches.”
The Panthers responded with a 7-0 run, capped a by a Robinette three-point play but weren’t able to capitalize on Hurt’s late free throw miss once they were forced to foul.
“At halftime I think the rebounds were even then we ended up getting out-rebounded by 10 or 11,” Tolliver said. “And then from there I felt like once they went on that run we punched back and did a decent job of showing some fight which we’ve had trouble with this year. When we get on those runs we tend to kind of stay down and team will kind of stretch that lead out on us. I thought we did a good job of punching back, just didn’t make enough shots down the stretch and they did.”
PikeView’s Elijah Hall, joined Gum, Hurt and Robinette in double figures with 14 points.
Princeton
Alex Cox 5, Jayce Gum 36, Tyrone Hawkins 7, Jack Hurt 16, Chance Barker 1, Christian Howard 3
PikeView
Nate Vestal 6, Logan Murphy 4, Trenton Tolliver 4, Ryan Robinette 27, Elijah Hall 14, Tyler Murray 9
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