Tigers Defeat Conference Foe NCOE
By Steve Dunford
Franklin County Hoops and Gridiron

CHRISTOPHER- The Thompsonville Tigers ran in to their conference rivals the Norris City-Omaha-Enfield Fighting Cardinals last night in a consolation semi final game Wednesday night at the 42 annual Christopher Thanksgiving Tournament. This was the third meeting in the last four games against the crew from White County. The first was a 31-28 win for the Tigers on the last regular season game of the year. They faced in the first round of the Crab Orchard 1A regional last year, falling 54-49 to the Cardinals. Wednesday night the Tigers held on for a 78-75 victory.

Monday night during the NCOE-Christopher game Thompsonville Coach Pete Gordon was drawing up press breakers. He told me we are going to feed the kids at school tomorrow (Tuesday) breakfast for a PBIS award, and we are going to come in and go two to four and work entirely on breaking this. The Tigers had no trouble breaking it. He inserted another guard in the lineup, 6’ 1” freshman Corbin Fitch for 6’ 7” inch Sophomore Center Anthoney Darge. Fitch ended up leading the Tigers with 21 on the night and nearly had a double double with eight rebounds. Fitch also drew the tough defensive assignment of NCOE sharpshooter Matt Long. Long only had one three on the night and most of his game high 26 came from the charity stripe.

Just like in the Fighting Cardinals opening game with Christopher, they come out like a house afire. The Tigers were breaking the press but the lid was on the basket. Another déjà vu minute from opening night was just like in the Webber game Thompsonville PG Tyson Kessler was keeping the team afloat. He ended up with 16 on the night. Kessler nearly had a double double also with nine assists. Fighting Cardinal Center Cooper Wells was getting a lot of open looks. When the Tigers were in some foul trouble and Darge came in the game late in the first quarter, wells was pushed out to the perimeter. At the end of the first quarter, the Tigers run the length of the floor and Fitch throws up a one hand buzzer beater to cut the Thompsonville lead to 20-14.

Play was wild, wooly and rugged in the second quarter. Thompsonville goes into the double bonus with 6:14 to go. I am going to say this here, the veteran crew of Bobby Blondi, Robby Blondi, and Larry Petit did an outstanding job on last nights game. NCOE went into it late in the first half. The Tigers were much improved from the FT line There was a lot of marching to the North end of “The Cave” last night. Both teams go down to the locker rooms with NCOE with a one point lead.

Whether on film or live last year I watched nearly every second of Tiger basketball last year. Darge had by far the best quarter he played. He had eight of his 12 points on the night, four rebounds and a couple of assists. He had seven boards total on the night. With three and some change NCOE Coach Evan Wyllie gets “T”d up. T’ville took the lead in the quarter and was up by eight. They go one for two from the line turn the ball and NCOE begins their final run of the game. At the end of three, the Tigers had a 57-53 lead.

In the fourth NCOE takes back the lead and looks like they were going to most likely play Z-R at 4:30pm Saturday. Midway through the fourth quarter Pete Gordon calls a time out after a Tiger turnover with the Fighting Cardinals up six and the ball. The Tigers start chipping away with Fitch getting a couple of steals.
T’ville ties it at 75 with a bucket from Kessler at the 1:13 mark. NCOE goes for one and coughs the ball up. Darge picks up an offensive board to put Thompsonville up 77-75 with :22. The next possession Long is found down low in the post and Darge blocks his shot. Jared Payne hits one for two from the line with :03 and seals the victory. I could not read my handwriting and I was trying to recall this from memory. I will have to watch the video to verify how much truth.

This is the type of win the Tigers needed after losing so many barn burners last year. I was talking to Webber Township coach Brad Beatty. He kept telling me he was not looking forward to us making the trip up to Bluford in a couple of weeks, while he was waiting to finally take the floor in a very long contest.

The Tigers advance to 1-1 on the season and will play in the consolation championship against the winner of Zeigler-Royalton/Hamilton County JV tomorrow afternoon at 4:30pm . NCOE will play the loser of the contest at 3pm for seventh place.

KEYS TO THE GAME:

1. Between Zack Kirkman and Anthoney Darge…the Tigers had 14 points of the bench. Pete Gordon has a much deeper bench this year.

2. The Tigers put four men in double figures. That would not have happened last year. Reed Raubach crept up on me when I looked at things. He scored 13 on the night.

3. There were very few unforced turnovers….the FT Shooting was better 21/38 55%. Keep improving and push that 70% mark. Yes they had 26 turnovers, which I think is acceptable in that type of play.

4. These kids won their second barn-burner out of four. Both of the wins were against NCOE. They need one or two more like that. When they do, it will be some very very fun times over the next few years.

5. NCOE will hit a lot of threes. The Tiger defense held them to two. They were very good defensively. You might see the box score, but I have not watched a 1A team play like NCOE, even the Webber Township teams of the mid 90’s.

6. Sixty-Four of the 78 scored by the Tigers were out of freshmen and sophomores. Jared Payne and Cory Wilce had seven points each on the night. Wilce had six rebounds and five assists. Payne had seven boards and spent half the night on the bench in foul trouble. Wilce had a layoff during the summer from illness. When he gets his stroke back, watch out when he starts bombing threes.

BOX SCORE:

THOMPSONVILLE (78) Fitch 9 0 3-6 21; Kessler 6 0 4-6 16; Raubach 4 1 4-4 13 Darge 6 0 4-6 12; Payne 2 0 3-5 7; Wilce 1 0 5-12 7; Kirkman 0 0 2-3 2. TOTALS

NCOE (75) Long 7 1 9-10 26; Wells 7 1 5-9 23; Healey 3 0 4-6 10; O’Neill 0 0 3-5 3 Taylor 1 0 0-0 2; Verble 2 1 0-0 7; Baumgarte 0 0 2-4 2; Skaggs 1 0 0-0 2; Simmons 1 0 0-0 2

SCORE BY QUARTERS:

THOMPSONVILLE (1-1) 14 22 21 21 -78

NCOE (0-2) 20 17 16 22-75

TECHNICAL FOULS: NCOE Bench…