Boys basketball: Grady Thompson breaks Princeton boys scoring record held by legendary Joe Ruklick

For 68 years, the legend of Joe Ruklick echoed at Princeton High School as the boys all-time scoring leader with 1,306 points.

While his legend will continue, his record no longer will.

Princeton senior Grady Thompson passed the Tigers great, scoring 15 points to help them to a 69-34 win over Three Rivers East rival Bureau Valley on Tuesday night at Prouty Gym.

Needing only seven points, Thompson beat the record late in the first quarter with a 10-foot pull-up from the left wing to give the Tigers a 14-6 lead.

He was presented with the game ball and handed it over to his father Eric, who was the one who got the younger Thompson started by taking him to his first Elks Hoops Shoot at age 9.

Thompson said it was nice to get it over, “but I’ve got more to go. It’s one step of the way there. I feel I’ve earned it. All the hours in the gym.”

To be linked with Ruklick made it special.

“That’s pretty cool. Go down in history here. You’re not just another name. You’re somebody everybody’s going to know,” said Thompson, who had a large turnout of supporters fro m Princeton Christian Academy decked out in red, where he attended elementary school and played basketball.

Tiger coach Jason Smith said Thompson is deserving of everything he gets.

“He puts in a lot of work outside of what you see here when nobody’s watching,” he said. “I think he’ll be the first one to tell you he’s glad it’s out of the way. It was kind of mounting up on him a little bit. I think he can start playing basketball again and not have to worry about everything.

“Ruklick’s a legend. That’s big-time stuff. We knew Grady had a chance after last year.”

With Thompson’s record behind them, the Tigers went to work on the Storm, leading 16-6 after one quarter.

Teegan Davis (17 points) opened the second quarter with a dunk to put the Tigers. He stuffed another off a loose ball to make it 29-13 and a fastbreak hoop by Thompson made it 33-16.

Going into his football mode, Davis, the future Iowa Hawkeye, dove for a loose ball, passed it to teammate Christian Rosario, got it back and buried a 3-pointer from the top of the key at the buzzer to give the Tigers a 36-16 halftime lead.

Kolten Monroe (16 points) took a post feed from Korte Lawson to give the Tigers a 58-28 lead at the end of the third quarter to put the running clock in play for the rest of the game.

Smith thought the Tigers were ready to play coming off Saturday’s loss to Normal U-High, which snapped their win streak at 24-0, but said they came out flat.

“We’ve got some things to clean up. Unforced turnovers killed us. I bet we had 18 to 20 of them in the first half alone. That’s 18 to 20 shots taken away from us. You can’t do that,” he said.

“I don’t know what us as coaches to get us to a better start. We got to figure out something in a hrry, because these slow starts are going to kill us.”

Thompson said it wasn’t necessarily hard coming off Saturday’s loss.

“We wanted to win. We came in here and did that. There was a lot of things we could have done better for sure,” he said. “But at the end of the day, we got a win. I think that will help us as we start a new streak.”

Junior guard Corban Chhim was a shining light for the Storm, scoring 11 points in the first half and finishing with a team-high 17 points.

“Sometimes in a 30-point loss you struggle to find some positives, but we had a few,” BV coach Jason Marquis said. “(Elijah) Endress communicated well. Chrim was intelligently aggressive. He’s always aggressive. It’s him picking out opportunities where, ‘I’ve done my job, I’ve draw some defenders and now I’m going to pass it the ball.’ To, ‘I’m going to attack it until they stop me.

“There’s some fundamentals we have to shore up. Did better at not compounding mistakes. That’s a positive.

Marquis tipped his hat to Thompson for his accomplishment.

“I’m happy for Grady. He’s worked hard. It’s a good example for out kids to recognize that hard work puts you in a better position to succeed,” he said. “It means a heckuva lot when you have to work hard at something. You walk into a test that’s easy and you don’t study at all, it doesn’t mean anything. You go into the toughest class and study for hours and hours and get an A, that’s a pretty darn good feeling.”