Seniors honored on Senior Night. Left to right: Dakota Bond, Jacob Delap, Brooke Harrison, Maddison Lydick, Joli Murphy, Brantley Neal, Marcus Niehaus, Chase Sutton, Nolan Sutton, Sydney Tucker, Chanse Tullis, Shelby Webb
Friday night at H.J. Phelps Gymnasium was a very eventful evening as not only were the Norris City-Omaha-Enfield Fighting Cardinals hosting the Crab Orchard Trojans in Greater Egyptian Conference basketball, but the last home basketball game of the season was taking place which would be the night Seniors were being recognized for their participation and alumni were able to take part in playing in the band or performing the school song with the cheerleaders.
With all of this excitement, it was no wonder that NCOE jumped out to the early first quarter lead against their conference rival as it appeared they could do no wrong on the offensive end as well as the defensive end of the court. In fact, the momentum stayed with the Fighting Cardinals throughout the remainder of the first half and this would contribute to NCOE taking an eleven point advantage into the locker room at halftime.
Coming out of the locker room, the tides would change. Crab Orchard would make some adjustments and step up their defense which would cause NCOE some difficulties scoring. This along with another fifteen point quarter would help the Trojans trim the Fighting Cardinal lead to only five with one quarter of play remaining. Having led throughout the whole game thus far, NCOE entered this final eight minute frame hoping to maintain this advantage and avenge two previous losses to the Trojans. However, in what seemed to be just the blink of an eye, senior Brantley Neal would go down for the remainder of the game with an ankle injury, and the momentum would continue to shift in Crab Orchard's favor. So much so that the Trojans took advantage of the streaky Fighting Cardinal shooting to outscore NCOE by twelve points and walk away with the 73-66 win. This loss dropped NCOE to 15-10 overall and 6-2 in conference play.
Dakota Bond led all Fighting Cardinals with 17 points in the contest. Chase Sutton followed with 15 while Jake Delap added 12, Marcus Niehaus nine, Matt Long eight, Nolan Sutton three, and Brantley Neal two.
Following the game, Coach Evan Wyllie stated, "It was a tale of two halves. We played extremely well on both ends of the floor in the first half. In the second half, we struggled rebounding the ball and shooting the ball. Our effort was there but it wasn't enough to get it done.
The junior varsity contest found the Fighting Cardinals starting out ice cold from the field while the Trojans were red hot. This, in turn would find NCOE trailing by thirteen points following the first quarter of play. Things did go much better defensively for NCOE in the second quarter as they limited their opponent to only four points. However, still struggling to score, the Fighting Cardinals would find themselves with an eight point halftime deficit.
After narrowing the gap to single digits, it appeared the deficit was attainable, but third quarter action was a near mirror image of the first as Crab Orchard exploded for another twenty points with NCOE only posting five more to their total. Now, trailing by twenty-three, the Fighting Cardinals knew they had to come alive offensively if they were to stand a chance, but once again, they were unable to do so and fell by the final score of 50-29.
Top scorer for NCOE (3-11) in the jayvee game was Jeb Baumgart with nine points. Others scoring were Trenton Verble eight, Colton O'Neal eight, Evan Healy two, and Brandon Skaggs two.
Varsity
1 2 3 4 Total
C.O. 15 13 15 30 73
NCOE 21 18 9 18 66
JV
C.O. 20 4 20 6 50
NCOE 7 9 5 8 29
