01-30-15
BY JACK BULLOCK
HARRISBURG - The Hardin County Cougars were hoping for the old adage “Third time is the charm” to work for them in their contest against NCOE on Friday night.

Having lost the previous two battles with the Fighting Cardinals in convincing fashion, Coach Rodney Lane was looking for some redemption.

What he and his Cougars got was another dose of solid defense and patient offense from Norris City-Omaha-Enfield in a 54-33 loss.

Capitalizing on mistakes and shutting down HC for most of the evening, Coach Bryon Graven saw his team put the game on ice in the fourth quarter to advance to Saturday night's title game of the annual Greater Egyptian Conference Tournament.

Defensively the Cards shut down the Cougars, holding them to just 20-points in the final 24-minutes of play while improving to 12-9 on the season.

For the Cougars it turned out to be another good start but a bad ending as they fell into the third place game and to 16-5 on the campaign, with three of the defeats coming to their rivals in Red and White.

In the two previous wins (a 58-37 regular season win on December 19, and a 62-44 consolation championship game win at the Eldorado Holiday Tournament) NCOE pulled away in the second half to win convincingly.

On Friday night the same formula worked for the Fighting Cardinals.

Chase Sutton, a senior forward for NCOE, scored 10 of his 17-points in the second half as his team used a big fourth quarter scoring run to get to the title game.

Sutton began the fourth quarter with a pair of baskets that started a 15-0 back-breaking sprint that got the Fighting Cardinals clear of danger.

Leading just 35-26 at the time, NCOE took nearly five minutes of clock time to do this damage.

Dakota Bond, a 6-foot junior guard for NCOE, scored 14-points on this night and hit four 3-point bombs in the contest.

His third of the four found the mark as part of that final run.

When his bomb hit home with 6:13 remaining, Hardin County needed a timeout at 42-26.

Unfortunately for the Cougars, the bleeding didn't stop.

Four different NCOE players scored the next four baskets as the lead ballooned to 24-points.

Blake Karnes scored on a baseline shot and three additional baskets came on offensive rebounds by Jacob Delap, Nate Glad and Sutton.

When Sutton grabbed a rebound for a stick-back with just 3:32 left, NCOE led 50-26.

Matt Long got into the scoring for Norris City-Omaha-Enfield with a pair of free throws and one of five offensive rebounds in the fourth quarter that turned into points.

His score with 1:50 to go gave NCOE its largest margin at 54-28.

Two baskets in the final minute by the Cougars got the final score to just a 21-point spread.

Hardin County was topped by BJ Austin as this senior guard, who broke the school's all-time career scoring mark on Tuesday night, led with 15-points.

Austin Seavers added six points for Hardin County with Logan Conn netting five.

However the Cougars didn't play very well after the opening quarter and fell too far behind as they fell into the third place game on Saturday.

Coach Lane's club ended up with a 11-of-32 performance from the floor (34.3 percent) which wasn't nearly good enough against NCOE.

Adding to the problems was 14-turnovers, with eight occurring in the first two quarters.

The Cougars were out-rebounded 23-19.

“They scored 33-points in 32-minutes, I will take that,” said Coach Graven following the defensive effort by his team. “I told the kids I thought we put together a solid four-quarters of defense but we were real inconsistent on offense. But in the second half we started boxing out better and played better defense. It is fun when that happens.”

Hardin County actually had one lead in the first quarter.

Trailing early after a 10-4 Cardinals' run to begin the game, Hardin County rallied with a pair of 3-pointers from Austin and sophomore Cameron Shaw to take a 13-12 advantage.

The lead, and the chances for a win, disappeared quickly for the Cougars as NCOE scored on a pair of shots from Bond and Sutton.

Bond bombed away for another 3-point shot for the Cards and Sutton drove down the middle of the lane for a lay in and a 17-13 lead at the end of the first quarter.

Leading just 22-18 after allowing another Austin score on a drive in the paint, the Fighting Cardinals scored the last six points of the half.

Kyle Sell scored on a baseline jumper and Karnes went to work inside for a pair of scores.

A rebound basket followed by a 12-footer near the foul line closed the half at 28-18 NCOE.

Neither team put on a show in the third quarter, but Hardin County couldn't bust into the deficit.

Sutton converted a conventional three-point play and hit a free throw with 2:55 left in the stanza for a 35-24 lead.

Neither team scored in those final minutes as Hardin County trailed by 11-points as they headed to the fourth.

After a Seavers score to begin the final eight minutes of play made it 35-26, the next four minutes belonged the the Cardinals.

NCOE finished 21-of-44 from the field (47.7 percent) but the best figure of the night was that they committed just seven turnovers, of which three were committed by the reserves in the final 1:50 of the game with the decision decided.

The Cardinals, led by Bond with four 3-pointers, were 5-of-11 from long-range.

Bond finished with 14-points while Sell and Karnes added six-points each.

NCOE gets a second chance at Crab Orchard on Saturday night as the top two seeds collide.

The Trojans topped the Cards, 74-71 in overtime back on December 2 at NCOE.

After falling behind 19-5 in the early going, Coach Jon Brown kept the troops calm and his kids responded with a big victory to improve to an impressive 21-2 overall mark.

Gunnar Galloway, a 6-foot-2 senior forward, topped the Trojans with 20-points while teammate 6-foot-4 sophomore Amos Beasley added 16-points.

Five-foot-nine junior guard Lane Hutson did most of his damage from outside of the lane, nailing three 3-point shots on his way to 13-points.

Neither team shot the ball particularly well on the night but the difference turned out to be what Crab Orchard did on the offense glass.

The Trojans held a 32-27 rebounding edge but 16 of the boards came on the offensive end.

“Ferrell got us a couple of stick-backs early and then Beasley stepped up and was a big factor for us, he played with a lot of energy and made some strong moves to the basket for points,” said Coach Brown. “On the defensive end I thought we picked it up in the second half after having some breakdowns early. We got focused in the second half.”

Committing seven turnovers and missing 10-shots in the first quarter, Crab Orchard was on upset alert.

Six-foot-one senior Darren Betz topped all scorers with 26-points, including 18-points in the first half.

He scored 10 in the opening quarter as the Wildcats jumped out to an early double-digit lead.

Opening the game with a pair of scores in the paint and then closing a run with a score followed by a bucket by senior Loren Whitting, CM led 16-5 with 2:54 left that forced a Crab Orchard timeout.

The Trojans scored the last seven points of the quarter and trailed just 19-12 at the horn.

The good news for Crab Orchard is that they managed to work their way back to a lead at halftime on the strength of their ability to get second chance points.

Both Galloway and Beasley made good on some follow up attempts in the second quarter.

Sophomore McKager Ferrell added two baskets on rebounds as part of an 12-3 run to even the score at 24-all with 3:50 left.

Carrier Mills, who entered the contest at 8-8 overall, netted the next five points on a rebound basket by Whitting and a 3-pointer by Betz gave the lead back to the Wildcats momentarily.

The Trojans scored the next six points to get to intermission on top 30-29.

A trey from Hutson and 3-of-4 free throws by Galloway and it was a one-point lead at the break.

Six-consecutive points to begin the second half gave the Trojans some room for error and Coach Brown's club did a better job taking care of the ball in the quarter.

Galloway began the frame with a 3-pointer and rebound basket by Ferrell off of his own missed lay up attempt gave the Trojans a 36-29 lead.

By the time Galloway hit his second 3-pointer from the left corner, Crab was in control at 44-35.

Carrier Mills made some runs in the fourth quarter to make it interesting.

A pair of free throws by Betz got the score to just 59-57 in the final minute before Beasley calmly nailed two charities to help get his club into the title contest on Saturday night.

As for the numbers, neither team shot “light's out” as Crab Orchard finished at 21-of-51 overall and 8-of-26 from downtown.

Carrier Mills ended up 23-of-54 overall.

For the Wildcats, behind Betz in scoring was Whitting with 14-points.

Carrier Mills will face Hardin County in the third place game Saturday night.

“When we get the looks that we want outside we have confidence out there and we expect our kids to take those shots. We are confident that they are going to knock them down,” said Coach Brown. “Even when you are struggling, if you can come back and hit a few it can definitely give you some momentum.”

Carrier Mills (57) – Figg 1 1 2-2 7, Betz 9 1 5-6 26, Whiting 7 0 0-1 14, Kalodner 2 0 0-0 4, Crowder 2 0 2-4 6, Mitchell 0 0 0-0 0, Schwartz 0 0 0-0 0.
2FG-21, 3FG-2, FT-9-13, PF-17
Crab Orchard (61) – Hutson 2 3 0-0 13, Vaughn 0 0 0-0 0, Ferrell 4 0 1-4 9, Galloway 2 3 7-8 Beasley 5 1 3-4 16, Schell 0 0 0-0 0, Tarlton 0 1 0-1 3, Stephens 0 0 0-0 0.
2FG-13, 3FG-8, FT-11-17, PF-12.
Fouled Out – None.
Technical Fouls – None.

Jabrayle Lumpkin added 13-points for Coach Jim Simmons team that jumped out to a 20-9 first quarter lead and never looked back to improve to 5-16 on the season.

Doug Ferguson and Zach Fasolo notched nine-points each in the victory.

Thompsonville (0-22) fell despite 14-points from 6-foot-3 junior Jesse Darnell and 10-points from senior Kyle Shimkus.

Pope County (55) – Harris 8 0 4-9 20, Fasolo 3 0 3-4 9, Bramlett 0 0 0-0 0, Lumpkin 2 3 0-0 13, Ferguson 4 0 1-4 9, Stalions 0 0 0-4 0, Worthen 0 0 0-0 0, Rawlings 1 0 0-2 2, Teitloff 0 0 0-0 0, Blankenship 1 0 0-0 2, Rison 0 0 0-0 0.
2FG-19, 3FG-3, FT-8-13, PF-5
Thompsonville (35) – Costello 1 0 0-0 2, Garrison 0 0 0-0 0, Shimkus 2 2 0-0 10, Darnell 6 0 2-3 14, Payne 1 0 2-2 4, Kirkman 1 1 0-0 5, Dixon 0 0 0-2 0, Woodring 0 0 0-0 0, Scro 0 0 0-0 0, Cardwell 0 0 0-0 0, Wilce 0 0 0-0 0.
2FG-11, 3FG-3, FT- 4-7, PF-15.
Fouled Out – None.
Technical Fouls – None.