Crusaders shift season, rivalry with Notre Dame to their favor

In a local basketball rivalry of biblical proportions, the Saxony Lutheran Crusaders rode to Notre Dame and beat the Bulldogs 64-54 on Friday.

“We came into it wanting to win there,” Saxony Lutheran senior Max Richey said, “big pep clubs great atmosphere and we were just ready to play.”

The trio of Richey, Luke Eggemeyer, and Jonathan Hartmann each scored 16 points.

“We started the season slow shooting and we've slowly been getting better,” Rickey said. “When you got three players scoring 15 points a game or 16 points a game, it's hard to beat.”

It’s the Crusaders’ second straight win over the Bulldogs in a rivalry that has historically been one-sided. As an underclassman, Richey endured back-to-back blowout defeats by Notre Dame to the tune of over 50 points.

“Last year was like a game changer,” Saxony Lutheran head coach Justin Callahan said. “Just really big for us just to finally come out and beat them for the first time in school history, and to do it on homecoming.

“I'm hoping it can be considered more of a rivalry,” he said. “If we're going to actually have good games every year, then it would really amplify the rivalry.”

Feeding off the energy of the atmosphere, Richey and Hartman combined to score 13 points in the first quarter, matching Notre Dame’s output. The Crusaders held the Bulldogs to seven points in the second quarter to go into halftime up 30-20.

“You could definitely feel that atmosphere,” Richey said. “Both pep clubs were screaming. I mean that's a perfect example of high school basketball. That's exactly what you wanted to be.”

Behind the sharpshooting of Reece Callow (14 points) and Kolton Johnson (11 points), the Bulldogs made 10 three-point baskets for the second consecutive game. However, they were unable to frequently get to the free-throw line, making only 4-of-5 from the charity stripe. Brett Dohogne also scored 12 points for the Bulldogs.

The Crusaders started the season slowly but have recently won four of their last five games to even their record at 8-8.

“A big game like this can really help everyone mentally,” Richey said. “We've been getting subs coming off the bench, starting to score a little more, get more confidence and it'll definitely be a big help.”

The Crusaders believe their best basketball is ahead of them. Their basketball core was also the core of their soccer team in the fall. That team went to the state semifinals, mere weeks before the start of the basketball season.

The Crusaders started the season 2-6 before winning two games to salvage their Valle Christmas Tournament experience on Dec. 29.

“Our soccer team had a great year,” Callahan said, “but what that meant for us, basketball-wise, I had four starters to play soccer. They didn't practice the first three weeks of basketball, and Luke Eggemeyer broke his foot (out an additional five weeks). So the three weeks put us behind. I don’t know how many people understand how big a deal that was. So we're kind of right now really starting to get healthy and kind of getting to that midseason form, where everybody else was kind of a couple of weeks ahead of us. So we're finally getting there.”

Notre Dame was on a roll lately, willing five of their last seven entering Friday. The Bulldogs broke out a new offense after falling to Cape Central on Jan. 5. They can still shoot well from the three-point line but will face a tough road challenge against Jackson on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.

Saxony Lutheran travels to Kelly on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. The Crusaders finish the month of January with one home game and three road games but will spend February with four of their remaining five games at home, which should bode well for their district tournament seeding.

“We've got some big games next week in our district,” Callahan said. “So hopefully we can keep this going. We got Kelly at their place and he's got Scott City at our place. So that is exactly what we want to try to do is to probably keep getting better and compete at a high level there.”