DISTRICT DEPARTURE: WOODLAND ENDS A FRUSTRATING YEAR FOR ND

BLOOMFIELD -- Over the course of this season, the Notre Dame boys basketball team had some frustratingly close losses.

Tuesday night's defeat to fifth-seed Woodland in the final opening-round contest of the Class 2A, District 2 Tournament was just plain frustrating.

The fourth-seeded Bulldogs fell behind 9-0 at the start, never held a lead and watched Woodland hit a remarkable 61 percent of its shots (34 of 56) on the way to a season-ending 85-56 loss.

The victory avenged a 79-75 loss Jan. 9 at Notre Dame for the Cardinals, who improved to 17-9 and advance to play top-seed Kelly (24-3) in a 6:30 p.m. semifinal Thursday.

The loss was Notre Dame's seventh in its final eight games since the Woodland victory, ending the Bulldogs' season with a 7-17 mark.

"Our kids wanted to prove they were better than they showed (in the loss) over at their place," said Woodland coach Jennings Wilkinson. "We got beat up in the post pretty good the first time we played (Notre Dame), but our kids answered the call tonight."

Nobody responded better than 6-foot-2 senior Jason Bandermann. An offensive non-factor in the first meeting between the two teams, Bandermann scored a game-high 19 points to lead the Cardinals into the semifinals.

"Jason's a gamer," Wilkinson said. "When he plays within himself, Jason's awfully hard to stop."

Bandermann scored 11 of his points in the first half as the Cardinals held a 17-8 first-quarter lead and stretched that to 38-20 at halftime.

"Woodland shot the ball extremely well and they penetrated against our man-to-man defense very well," said Notre Dame coach Chris Janet. "The combination of them playing great and us playing the way we did was not good."

Led by some hot shooting by sophomore Josh Eftink, Notre Dame made a run at the Cardinals early in the second half. Eftink scored 10 of the Bulldogs' 19 points in quarter as Notre Dame closed the score to 44-38 with 3:35 on the clock. Eftink ended with a team-high 14 points.

Wilkinson called a timeout to stop the Bulldogs' momentum.

"I told our kids in the timeout 'we gave (Notre Dame) some points and now we had to go out and get them back,'" said Wilkinson. "They answered that challenge."

Woodland outscored the Bulldogs 14-1 to close out the quarter with a 58-39 lead.

"We gave a heck of an effort in the third quarter to get it back to within six points," Janet said. "But then we went back to doing the things that got us in trouble this whole season."

Notre Dame shot a respectable 48 percent from the field (22 of 46), but 16 turnovers hurt the Bulldogs and led to several easy shots for the Cardinals. Nick Dannemueller, the Bulldogs' lone senior, scored 10 points in his final high school game. Junior Jason Rubel added another 10.

Woodland got 17 points from junior David Massa, 16 from senior Cory Yount and 10 from senior Greg Lincoln.