The Robert D. Campbell Jr. High Cardinals suffered their second home loss of the season Monday 54-50 to Scott County in the first round of the conference tournament.

Neither team could pull away early as RDC held a 24-21 halftime lead.

The Cards opened the second half on a 4-0 run to extend the lead 28-21, which was the biggest lead by either team during the game.

Scott was forced to call a timeout to regroup.

Scott came out of the timeout and drilled two threes on back-to-back possessions to pull the game back to within a possession.

The Cards trailed 40-36 after the third.

An and-one just before the buzzer to end the third shifted the momentum to Scott’s favor.

Scott loosely held on to the lead and it was good enough to pull away with the win.

Head coach Dwain Gay said he could tell his team’s emotions were through the roof before the game.

“I think we were a little nervous,” he said. “We had some turnovers. Unforced errors and walks. Defensively, we wanted to pressure and they handled our pressure well. We didn’t capitalize like we should have.”

KBC is hosting the state tournament which RDC will participate in the coming weeks.

Gay said he is going to give other players a chance to play to finish out the season strong at the tournament.

“It is a two-game-guaranteed format,” he said. “We’re going to go over there and get everybody in. I want them to end up having a good year.”