Tuesday evening found the Norris City-Omaha-Enfield Fighting Cardinal basketball team returning to Greater Egyptian Conference play when they hosted the Pope County Pirates.
NCOE started the game strong using their full court press to throw the Pirates off guard. Pope County, playing without their normal point guard, found themselves surrendering numerous turnovers. The Fighting Cardinals took advantage of these turnovers on their own offensive end to jump out to the commanding 27-4 first quarter lead. The second quarter was nearly a mirror image of the first, and this allowed NCOE to claim a 38 point halftime lead.
Second half action found the pace of the game slowing down quite a bit, but the Fighting Cardinals had wreaked all the havoc they needed to against the Pirates, coasting to the 67-17 victory to improve their conference record to 4-1 on the season.
Three Fighting Cardinals reached double digits in the contest with Chase Sutton’s 14 leading the way, followed by 12 from Dakota Bond and 11 from Matt Long. Others scoring for NCOE were Jake Delap eight, Cooper Wells six, Trenton Verble six, Nolan Sutton four, Brantley Neal four, and Jeb Baumgart two.
Following the game, Coach Evan Wyllie stated, “We forced 23 turnovers in the first half. We were able to get run outs and easy scores. Everyone on our team got to play and contributed in some fashion.” “We are now 11-6 and have won three in a row. We are starting to play very well as a team,” added Wyllie.
The junior varsity contest was all NCOE from start to finish as well with the Fighting Cardinals outscoring their opponent in each of the four quarters to cruise to the 47-29 victory. This victory moved the jayvee Fighting Cardinals to 1-4 in the GEC standings.
Evan Healy topped all Fighting Cardinals with 13 points in the contest. Others scoring were Jeb Baumgart 11, Trenton Verble nine, Justin Brock six, Ben Taylor five, and Brandon Skaggs three.
