Saturday evening marked the third trip to Wayne City this week for Coach Jimmy Goebel’s NCOE Junior High basketball team. This time, however, the Jr. Cards were playing for some hardware as they were set to take on the home town Wayne City Braves in the Consolation Championship game.
The first quarter was shaping up to be a very well balanced game. Both teams were determined to put forth their best effort and give everything they could to win and when the buzzer sounded, the Jr.Cards would find themselves trailing by only one point, 10-9. Second quarter action started out the same way as the first with both teams trading baskets. NCOE would go on to tie the contest at 16 all, but would then run into some offensive woes and be unable to put another point on the board the rest of the way. This scoring drought would find the Jr.Cards trailing by nine heading into the locker room at halftime.
NCOE would come back out in the third quarter and continue to struggle on the offensive end as they were only able to make one field goal along with one free throw to fall behind 39-20 with only one quarter remaining. This fourth and final quarter would finally see the Jr.Cardinals get going on the offensive end and add 13 more points to their total to outscore their opponent. Unfortunately, this was just not enough and Wayne City would hand NCOE the hard fought 51-33 loss.
After the game, Coach Goebel stated, “We played well. We need to rebound better and limit turnovers, but I saw a lot of improvement in this tournament. More specifically, our press is starting to look pretty good.”
CJ Richardson was the top scorer for NCOE in the contest with 10 points. Others scoring were Jack Riggs nine, Trey Simmons four, Nathaniel Wilson four, Bryce Jolley four, and Spencer Taylor two. Ty Money led the way in the assists category dishing out four. Ty Lane, Jack Riggs, and Lucas Thomas each contributed with one each.
Peyton Edwards and CJ Richardson shared honors with grabbing three rebounds apiece. Joe Melton followed with two along with one each by Ty Money and Jack Riggs. Ty Money topped all Jr. Cards with four steals. Others with steals were CJ Richardson three, Trey Simmons two, and Jack Riggs two.
After the votes were tallied from the week long tournament performances, it was determined that NCOE’s Jack Riggs was selected as one of the members to the all-tournament team.
Next up for the Junior Cardinals (7-7) will be a home game against Eldorado on Monday, December 7. This will be followed with a trip to Fairfield on Thursday, December 10.
