Fishburne escapes Bridgewater JVs, 104-100

The Fishburne postgrad basketball team was focused on its game Tuesday night at nationally-ranked Hargrave. The Bridgewater College JV team was living in the here and now.

“These guys came to play,” a visibly angered Ed Huckaby, the coach of the FMS PG team, said after his Caissons escaped with a 104-100 win over the Eagles Monday night at Alumni Memorial Gym.

Escaped may be generous, if that’s possible. Bridgewater jumped out to a 12-3 lead in the first three minutes, led by as many as 13 midway through the first half and went into the break up 46-35.

And then it got worse for the home team, with Bridgewater opening the second 20 minutes on an 8-0 run to lead 54-35 with 17:08 to go. Huckaby called a timeout and lit into his team, and changed strategy with a full-court press aimed at speeding the game up.

It worked, to say the least, as FMS outscored Bridgewater 41-10 over the next 8:16 to turn that 19-point deficit into a 12-point lead at 76-64 with 8:52 to go.

But the Eagles JVs were not done, fighting back to tie the game at 84 with 4:15 left and forcing the Caissons to close out the final minute at the free-throw line.

“Bad effort by us. We came out slow, started slow, ended slow. We’ve got to pick it up,” said Jeremy Harris, who led Fishburne with 32 points.

Huckaby did not mince words after the game.

“Our effort stunk,” the sixth-year coach said. “We’re supposed to be a national team. I got one guy that showed up to play. That was Jeremy Harris. The rest of this crap, I don’t know what to say. We stunk.”