Central boys basketball team ends season for rival Notre Dame

Central boys basketball coach Drew Church succinctly summed up his team's Class 4 District 1 semifinal against Notre Dame sitting in his office after the game Thursday night.

"It was a good, old-fashioned physical district game between us and Notre Dame, and it was a fun," Church said. "It was a fun game to be in."

It was a little more fun for Church and the No. 3 seeded Tigers after they defeated the second-seeded Bulldogs 51-49 on their home court.

A heave from beyond half court by Notre Dame's Chase Urhahn was well off target as the buzzer sounded, allowing Central to advance to tonight's 7:30 p.m. district championship against Sikeston.

"It's means a lot considering I'm a senior," Central center Jamal Cox said. "All seniors want to win state their senior year. It just meant a lot to go play with a good group of guys, hard-working guys, and get a win. We've just got to show up tomorrow and try to get that 'W.'"

Notre Dame coach Kevin Roberts and the Bulldogs bench pleads for an intentional foul to be called on a Central player in the final seconds of their Class 4 District 1 semifinal game against Central at Central High School. The Tigers won 51-49. (Adam Vogler)

The Tigers earned a 6-0 lead to start the game, but the majority of the rest of the first half was a struggle for Central, which turned the ball over 13 times and was 7 of 17 from the floor.

"We just didn't play," Church said. "They came out and they played harder and better in the first half than we did. They kind of punched us in the mouth. One thing that I'm proud of our guys this year for -- with our rough start and everything -- they really dealt with adversity really well. When bad things happen, it used to be a team at the beginning of the year that complained to each other or pointed fingers, and now they pull together. That's one of the biggest reasons we were able to win tonight."

Even while playing what Church called "one of our worst halves that we have played in a while," the Tigers never trailed by more than three points.

Central got off just six shots in the second quarter and Notre Dame's pressure defense helped force nine turnovers in the period, but the Bulldogs won the quarter by just four points after shooting 4 of 15 from the field.

"When you get turnovers, you've got to convert on the other end," Notre Dame coach Kevin Roberts said. "We had been pretty good at that, but we forced one and missed a layup and then we missed two free throws. You let a team like Cape hang around, they're going to come back to bite you."

Central junior Jalen Reddin scores a first-half basket against Notre Dame during the Class 4 District 1 semifinal game Thursday at Central High School.

Notre Dame led 23-20 at halftime and continued to lead for the entire third quarter, although the gap never got larger than four points and the Bulldogs led just 34-33 at the end of the quarter.

Central junior Andre Statam changed that when he made two 3-pointers in just under a minute near the start of the fourth quarter to give the Tigers a 39-36 lead that they never gave up.

"The two biggest shots were Andre's back-to-back 3s because we had a lot of momentum there," Roberts said. "Give them credit. They made buckets when it counted, but our guys fought to the end.

"We wanted them to shoot outside. To beat Cape, you've got to force them to shoot the ball, but Andre's the one guy you've got to find. He is. We didn't do that, and he made us pay."

Statam finished the game with 14 points.

"I was just feeling it at that time," Statam said about the 3-pointers. "Coach told me to keep shooting the ball because in the first half I really wasn't shooting that well.

"I was wide open, so I took them."

Notre Dame closed the lead to 42-40 on a Dean Crippen basket with 3 minutes, 44 seconds remaining, but Central began to slow the pace and spread the floor and scored on its next three possessions to keep the Bulldogs at bay. The streak was capped by an emphatic dunk from Cox, who finished with a team-high 17 points, on a pass from Al Young with 1:58 to go.

The Tigers made just 3 of 8 free throws over the final 1:11 of the game, which allowed the Bulldogs a chance to win at the end.

Notre Dame's Thomas Himmelberg made two free throws with 4.7 seconds to go after being fouled with his team trailing 50-47. That set up Urhahn's heave at the end.

"We wanted to get the ball to Quinn [Poythress], but they double-teamed him, so our second option was Chase," Roberts said about the last play. "The main reason was he's hit a half-court shot here before against Parkway South at the Tiger Classic, so if somebody was going to do it, it was going to be Chase -- so we wanted Quinn and then Chase was our second option."

Notre Dame finished the season 17-9.

"Yeah, it's a loss, but it doesn't take away the accomplishments we had this year," Roberts said. "We had a heck of a record. The last month and a half of the season we were really, really good. It was hard-fought game. Our guys played extremely hard, and someone had to lose, but it was just a really good game."

Central improved to 16-10 and will try to upset the top-seeded Bulldogs from Sikeston tonight.

"We're going to have to play well," Church said. "They're a good team. But if I know my guys, they're not going to back down. They're not going to be scared. We're going to compete. It might not be a real pretty game, but we're going to battle. We had a pretty close game with them here until they broke it open at the end a little bit with free throws, but we're going to compete and we're going to play hard and try to go to our bigs and do things that we do well."

Central 14 6 13 18 -- 51

Notre Dame 13 10 11 15 -- 49

CENTRAL (51) -- Al Young 9, Jalen Reddin 6, Jamal Cox 17, Mikey Jones 5, Andre Statam 14. FG 17, FT 14-24, F 13. (3-pointers: Reddin 1, Statam 2. Fouled out: none)

NOTRE DAME (49) -- Chase Urhahn 2, Quinn Poythress 16, Trent Schumer 5, Grant Ressel 2, Jordan Barber 8, Thomas Himmelberg 4, Derek Hulshof 4, Dean Crippen 8. FG 21, FT 5-9, F 20. (3-pointers: Poythress 2. Fouled out: Barber)