Saturday morning would find the Norris City-Omaha-Enfield Junior Cardinal 5th/6th Grade basketball teams venturing to Hamilton County to play their first game of the season.
The sixth grade game would find the Jr. Cards hanging tough throughout the first quarter of action as they would only trail by one point, 5-4, when the first quarter ended. Second quarter action was not as friendly for NCOE when they scored nary a point while the Jr. Foxes added six points to their total. This offensive slowdown would find NCOE trailing by seven points at halftime.
Second half action would find the nerves wearing off for the Junior Cards as they were able to put up nine third quarter points. Unfortunately, their opponent managed to top them by three points to leave NCOE facing a 10- point deficit with just one quarter remaining. This final frame would find the Foxes going on an 11-6 run to hold on and hand NCOE the 34-19 loss.
Max Riggs led the scoring for NCOE with nine points followed closely by Bryer Sauls with eight points while Kade Bond added two points Fifth grade action would also start out fairly balanced in the first quarter with the Jr. Cards scoring three points compared to six by the Foxes. The Junior Cardinals would do even better in the second quarter when they added four more points to their total, but the Foxes would add five more points to their total to leave NCOE trailing 11-7 as halftime arrived.
Following intermission, the Jr. Cards would hit a wall and were unable to score a point in the third quarter of play. This slowdown along with 10 points scored by the Foxes found NCOE facing a 14 point deficit with just one quarter of play remaining. This final stanza was much better for NCOE but once again the Foxes would top the Jr. Cards 6-4 to extend their lead to 27-11 when the final buzzer sounded.
Jaxen Simmons scored four points for the Jr. Cards to lead the scoring followed by two points a piece from Dustin McPherson, Owen Russell, and Wyatt Wells, and one point from Conner Graves.
