The Norris City-Omaha-Enfield Junior Cardinal basketball team welcomed the Galatia Junior Bearcats to town Thursday evening for their final regular season Little Greater Egyptian Conference game. This contest not only have a lot at stake as far as seedings for the upcoming LGEC Tourney but it would also be the recognition of 8th grade students participating in basketball whether it be a player, cheerleader, statistician or announcer; therefore, it was no surprise that emotions were running high.
Emotions obviously got the best of NCOE when the contest started for it was no time and the Junior Cardinals found themselves facing an 11-0 deficit. At this time, NCOE started to make some adjustments and began to settle down and slowly chipped away at the Bearcat lead and found themselves only trailing 17-10 following one quarter of play. Second quarter action was balanced most of the way, but as halftime approached, Galatia would manage to top the Jr. Cards by two points to stretch their lead out to 28-19 at the break.
NCOE came out of the locker room and once again hit the court in a very sluggish manner finding baskets hard to come by. As time progressed, the Junior Cardinals began to relax to work their way back into the game and when the third quarter came to a close, both teams would register nine points a piece to keep the NCOE deficit at 9 heading into the final quarter of play. The fourth and final quarter would be all NCOE as they would finally get into a rhythm on the offensive end as well as the defensive end which allowed them to roar back to go on a 20-7 run. This impressive run enabled the Jr. Cards to not only erase a double digit shortfall but to pull off the come from behind victory, 48-44. Scoring was very balanced for the Junior Cardinals as Cord Tucker, Will Thompson, Preston Long, Joel Hortin, and Aryon Jolley would each gather eight points in the game to claim scoring honors. Others scoring were Cole Roberson six points, and Colter Rister two points. Tucker and Long would lead the team in assists with three a piece followed by Rister, Roberson, Thompson, and Jolley with two each.
Will Thompson gathered a team high seven rebounds while Preston Long collected five, Cord Tucker two, Aryon Jolley two, Cole Roberson two, Colter Rister one, and Joel Hortin one. Tucker topped all Jr. Cards with four steals followed by Thompson with three, Roberson two, Long two, and Jolley one.
The junior varsity squad wasted little time in taking control of the game as they jumped out to an early 6-0 lead in the first quarter and went on finish the frame with a 7-4 run to claim the early 13-4 advantage. NCOE kept their intensity level high on the defensive end in the second quarter as they on allowed four Bearcat points once again while adding 14 points to their total to claim the 19-point lead heading into the locker room at halftime.
Second half action would find the Junior Cardinal offense slowing down but the defense continued to hold strong as NCOE managed to outscore Galation 15-12 in the final two quarters of play to walk away with the 42-20 victory.
Both Erik Healy and Tate Riggs would collect 10 points a piece to lead the Junior Cardinals in scoring while Cord Tucker added eight, Joel Hortin seven, Preston Long five, and Colby Prather two. Healy, Long, and C. Prather would dish out three assists a piece followed by two from Hortin, and one each from Tucker, Jaden Simmons, and Nolan Prather.
Rebounding was led by Joel Hortin with four while Preston Long and Erik Healy each collected three. Long led the team with three steals followed by two from Healy and one a piece from Cord Tucker, Colby Prather, and Joel Hortin.
NCOE will wrap up their regular season play Monday, January 8, when they travel to Carmi to take on the Bullpups. They will then begin Little Greater Egyptian Conference Tournament play on Thursday, January 11, when they play host to Crab Orchard in the first round of tournament play.
