The NCOE Fighting Cardinal basketball team traveled to Galatia Tuesday evening to take on the Bearcats. With Galatia already defeating Crab Orchard along with other Greater Egyptian Conference teams, fans knew this matchup had the makings of great game.
When the ball was tipped, it did not take long to understand how the Bearcats had defeated all of these teams as the long range three pointer was nothing but net giving Galatia the early 3-0 lead. This lead was short lived as the rest of the quarter was all NCOE. With the Fighting Cardinals leading 18-11 and the clock winding down, Dakota Bond launched a last second three pointer and drew the foul. This sent Bond to the line where he would convert two of the three charity shots to give NCOE the 20-11 lead after one. Second quarter action was more NCOE as they kept things going on the offensive end increasing their lead to 42-23 at the halftime break.
Coming out of the locker room, things slowed down a little on the offensive end, but the Fighting Cardinals managed to outscore their opponent 32-18 in the second half to cruise to the 74-41 victory. This win moves NCOE to 6-3 overall and 2-1 in the conference.
Following the game, Coach Evan Wyllie stated, “Despite having two starters out, we had some guys step up for this win. Dakota Bond had by far his best game of the year for us. We were able to handle their early pressure and got some easy scores. This was a great win for us as a team.”
Dakota Bond led NCOE with 26 points followed by Chase Sutton’s 16 and Nolan Sutton’s 10. Others scoring in the game were Cooper Wells eight, Marcus Niehaus six, Jake DeLap five, and Justin Brock three.
The junior varsity contest got off to a slow start for both teams but midway through the first quarter the Bearcats started having shots fall that weren’t earlier and went on to claim the 15-9 first quarter lead. NCOE picked up the pace a little bit in the second quarter to add 11 more points to their total, but the aggressive Bearcats topped them with 17 of their own and held a 32-20 halftime lead.
Following halftime, Ben Taylor continued his hot night of shooting from behind the arc, and NCOE battled back to cut the lead to single digits. However, every single time the Fighting Cardinals would make a run, the Bearcats would answer back and went on to hand NCOE the 52-41 loss. Coach Jim Tucker’s squad now stands at 0-4 on the season and 0-3 in conference play.
Ben Taylor led all Fighting Cardinals with 22 points. Others scoring in the contest were Trenton Verble with nine, Colton O’Neal four, Evan Healy three, and Justin Brock three.
