Cape Central knocks off Notre Dame to wrap up regular season

As the saying goes, it’s tough to beat a team three times.

After defeating the Cape Central Tigers twice already this season, the Notre Dame Bulldogs looked to sweep the season series.

However, a dominating defensive effort from the Tigers stifled those plans as they knocked off the Bulldogs 3-1 on Wednesday at Cape Central High School.

“This is our biggest win of the season for sure,” Tigers coach Haley Silman said.

After dropping the first set 25-23, the Tigers responded winning the next three sets 27-15, 25-17 and 26-24, respectively.

Silman was proud of the way her team responded to dropping set one.

“Our hitters stayed aggressive,” Silman said. “Our defense stayed on their toes and we’ve been working on all of that the last couple weeks.”

The first two regular season meetings served as motivation for the Tigers according to Silman.

“We knew we could play with them,” Silman said. “We knew we could beat them and I just kept telling them to believe in themselves.”

Nearly every attack from the Bulldogs was neutralized by the Tigers.

“We’ve been working on defense every chance we get,” Silman said. “I kept telling them that that’s going to help us win. We’ve got a great offense but we have a good defense too and we just had to clean up a few things.”

On the offensive side, the Tigers kept the ball moving around, getting everyone involved in the attack.

“We were just trying to keep things switched up a little bit,” Silman said. “We’ve been working on not being so predictable all season. We’ve got good strong hitters every rotation so we were able to do that.”

To go along with beating their crosstown rival, the win also provides the Tigers with a big momentum boost heading into Class 4 District 1 play.

“We have to play like we did tonight,” Silman said. “I told them that there’s no better way to end a season right before districts. We have to play knowing that we can fall behind and still come back.”

The Tigers begin district play at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 20, when they battle Festus at North County High School.