The athletic office sold 3500 tickets on Sat. Feb. 28. A battle of highly ranked teams took place in the SHS Fieldhouse with the number three SHS Cardinals hosting the number one Evansville Reitz Panthers. The hype this game had brought Indiana Hoosiers head coach Tom Crean to the fieldhouse. The Cardinals, led by senior Malik Bennett with 30 points, beat the Panthers, 88-80.

As stated earlier, Bennett led the Cards with 30 points and he shot nine of 10 from the free throw line with many of those coming toward the end of the game.

“We played great,” Bennett said. “It was the best game of the season. We have to work on everything (for sectionals), we aren’t perfect.”

The first half was low scoring and full of defense. The Panthers played a full court man-to-man press defense that caused six turnovers in the first half. After halftime, the Cards switched to man-to-man defense against head coach Kyle Simpson’s first thoughts, but assistant coach Chris Thomas convinced him to make the switch.

The Cards held the Panther’s best player Jaelan Sanford, who averages 21 points a game, to two points.

“We did some things,” Simpson said. “Sectionals is our focus now.”

The Cards have sectionals to think about now and they play the winner of Northwest and Ben Davis. Their game is at 6:00 P.M. on Fri. March 6.