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Notre Dame hands NMCC first loss of the season 65-48
NEW MADRID -- The last time New Madrid County Central squared off with Notre Dame the Eagles used its 63-53 win as a springboard for its first SEMO Conference tournament championship in school history.
Fast forward a week later and the Eagles were quickly reminded that the SEMO Conference is a season-long grind.
Notre Dame's retribution came in dominating fashion defeating NMCC 65-48 on Tuesday at New Madrid County Central High School.
This is Notre Dame's second conference road win this season having already defeated Charleston in overtime during its first game of the year.
"Anybody can win anywhere," Notre Dame senior Quinn Poythress said about his team's two conference road wins. "Any given night anybody can be beaten. You just have to be ready."
Sophomore Blake Bauwens led Notre Dame off the bench with 18 points on 5 of 10 shooting which included 3 of 5 from 3-point range. Poythress added 14 points, six rebounds and three blocks.
Notre Dame (3-2, 2-0 SEMO Conference) finished the conference tournament with a 53-50 loss to Cape Central in the consolation championship.
"We had some downers in the conference tournament but I didn't think we played terrible," Notre Dame head coach Paul Unterreiner said. "We bounced back from those and that's one thing I'm proud of about this team. We've had two conference games on the road and we've came out of them victorious. It has to be day by day."
NMCC (6-1, 0-1 SEMO Conference) suffered its first loss of the season after getting off to its best start since the 2001-02 season.
Senior Willie Jimerson led all scorers with 20 points but the all-state guard had his worst shooting performance of the year so far. Jimerson went 5 of 16 from the floor missing six of his first eight shots. Sophomore Javarcus Word added eight points and senior Drew Palmer added six on two 3-pointers.
As a team, New Madrid shot 11 of 49 (22 percent) including 4 of 13 from 3-point range. Notre Dame countered with 7 of 15 from behind the arc and 51 percent (23 of 45) from the field.
"We all struggled," New Madrid County Central head coach Travis Day said. "You hate that that determines how you play, but that affected us tonight. You could tell when that ball didn't go through the net for them it affected the way they played.
"Last game we were the aggressor, this game they were," added Day referencing his team's win against Notre Dame in the first round of the SEMO Conference tournament. "We let them dictate tempo instead of us being in attack mode like normal. That's the difference."
One area Notre Dame wanted to excel this time around was on the glass. The Bulldogs did just that out-rebounding NMCC 39-23. Derek Hulshof led Notre Dame with 10 rebounds followed by Dean Crippen, who had six.
Asten Newsom led NMCC with 11.
"The first time we played them we felt like we got pushed around a little bit," Poythress said. "Our big emphasis was rebounding, which was one of our weaknesses the first time we played them."
A tight knit first half gave way to a landslide third for Notre Dame.
The Bulldogs, who were down by two at halftime, opened the second half with a 10-0 run putting them ahead 39-31. Jimerson answered with a traditional 3-point play to stop the bleeding for a bit, but Notre Dame closed out the quarter by outscoring the Eagles 8-4 to take a 47-38 lead entering the fourth quarter.
Jimerson scored all seven of New Madrid's third quarter points.
"We hit a wall and we couldn't fight through it," Day said about the third quarter. "I probably could have called a timeout a few times but I wanted to see what type of team I had through those adversity minutes. Hopefully our kids learn from this and get better."
Two free throws by Word cut Notre Dame's lead to seven to open the fourth period but the Bulldogs went on another big run -- this time 11-0 -- for an 18-point lead. The Eagles cut its deficit to as small as 13 with 2:46 remaining.
"We kind of got out of our offense in the first half," said Unterreiner. "We were a little selfish and took some bad shots. When we ran our offense we got really good looks. We got back to that in the second half. I kind of called them out. I thought the first half we were getting pushed around but then they stepped up. Every single one of them did."
Bauwens, who came off the bench, scored 13 of his 15 in the second half helping stave off a potential comeback from NMCC.
"Blake's a good player and he's young," Unterreiner said. "I didn't think he forced anything and let the game come to him and kudus to the rest of the guys because they didn't care who was scoring."
Notre Dame led 12-7 after the first quarter but the Eagles quickly recovered. NMCC outscored the Bulldogs 24-17 in the frame and ended up taking a 31-29 lead at the half. There were five lead changes and ties in the second quarter alone. Jimerson scored 11 of his 20 in the frame.
"We talked about limiting Willie," Unterreiner said. "He got his 20 because he's a good player, but I thought we did a good job of that tonight."
Notre Dame's conference battles continue on Friday when they travel to Sikeston with junior varsity starting at 6 p.m.
NMCC goes to Doniphan on Friday as well.
"We're going to have bad shooting nights but we can't let that bother us," said Day. "We can't allow our offense dictate how hard we play."
Notre Dame also won the junior varsity contest 54-37.
| Notre Dame | 12 | 17 | 18 | 17 | -- | 65 |
| NMCC | 7 | 24 | 7 | 10 | -- | 48 |
NOTRE DAME (65) -- Tanner Shively 1, Chase Urhahn 7, Quinn Poythress 14, Trenton Schumer 2, Derek Hulshof 9, Dean Crippen 4, Blake Bauwens 18, Thomas Himmelberg 3, Nick Bradshaw 7. FG 23 FT 12-22 F 23. (3-pointers: Urhahn 1, Poythress 2, Bauwens 3, Himmelberg 1. Fouled out: none.)
NMCC (48) -- Willie Jimerson 20, Mikael Walker 2, Javarcus Word 8, Drew Palmer 6, Asten Newsom 4, Deon Jenkins 2, Kiel Causey 3, T.J. Clark 3. FG 11 FT 22-31 F 22. (3-pointers: Palmer 2, Causey 1, Clark 1. Fouled out: Word.)