After coming off a win in Monday night’s contest against the Thompsonville Tigers in the first round of the IHSA Class 1A Regional Tournament, the Norris City-Omaha-Enfield Fighting Cardinal basketball team was once again venturing to Crab Orchard to continue their season. This time, however, they would be playing in the semi-final round against the overall number one seed, Woodlawn Cardinals. Not only is Woodlawn the top seed in the regional, they are also ranked #8 in the Class 1A AP Illinois High School Boy’s Basketball rankings. Therefore, the Fighting Cardinals were well aware that they had their work cut out for them this Tuesday evening.
When action got underway, if NCOE was intimidated one inkling by the state ranked Woodlawn Cardinals, not a soul in the gymnasium could tell, for the Fighting Cardinals jumped out to the early 5-0 lead. Finally beginning to settle down offensively, Woodlawn would get on the board and actually narrow the gap to one before NCOE would once again have the momentum shift their way, which enabled them to claim the 9-6 lead following the first quarter of play. Second quarter action would find shooting struggles come into play for the Fighting Cardinals, due to the fact that Woodlawn’s lineup was composed of four players better than six foot tall (6’5”, 6’5”, 6’4”,and 6’3” to be exact). This extreme height disadvantage would contribute to the Fighting Cardinals falling behind 25-15 at the halftime break.
As the third quarter began, it was apparent that NCOE needed to make a run if they were going to stand a chance to pull off the upset victory. Unfortunately for the Fighting Cardinals, the size advantage Woodlawn possessed did not allow NCOE to make such a surge as most shot attempts were contested, which led to even more offensive struggles. Now trailing by twenty-two heading into the final frame of action, the outcome looked inevitable. NCOE did battle until the final buzzer sounded, but in the end the Woodlawn Cardinals would hand the Fighting Cardinals the 61-33 loss. This closed the Fighting Cardinal season with a final record of 16-13.
Dakota Bond was the leading scorer for NCOE with 15 points. Chase Sutton would follow closely with 13 points of his own, and Matt Long would round out the scoring with five points.
At the conclusion of the game, Coach Evan Wyllie commented, “We played solid for about a quarter and a half. Our defensive strategy worked extremely well. Then we started to give up some offensive rebounds that led to easy scores.” Wyllie also added, “I couldn’t be prouder of this group. We accomplished a lot this year. This isn’t the ideal way we wanted to go out, but we played extremely hard tonight. We never gave up. We competed until the very end.”
