Fowler's 3-pointer helps ND dump Ursuline

The Notre Dame girls basketball team took possession of the ball trailing by a point with just about a minute to play in Saturday's game against the Ursuline Academy Bears.

After a failed 3-point attempt from the opposite side of the court, the ball ended up in the hands of wide-open sophomore Miranda Fowler. She did not hesitate before launching an attempt of her own from the corner, which swished through the net to give the Bulldogs a one-point lead with 38 seconds to go.

"I did not design that play, but I'll take credit for it," Notre Dame coach Renee Peters said with a laugh. "We'll take it. It was big for her. That was a big confidence booster for Miranda Fowler. She's a sophomore taking some hard knocks this year learning to play at this level, so that was a big boost for her."

Notre Dame did not trail again on its way to a 80-75 victory in a high-scoring, back-and-forth affair.

"That was pretty lucky on my part because I walked before it," admitted senior Allyson Bradshaw, who delivered the ball to Fowler. "Thank God she hit that one."

The Bulldogs took a 13-3 lead to start the game, but after a quick Ursuline comeback, neither team held a lead of more than six points. Notre Dame led by that many early in the third quarter while Ursuline did the same with just more than three minutes to go.

"They're a very good team and we got into foul trouble so early in the first quarter, but the girls found a way to win," Peters said.

Notre Dame committed its seventh team foul of the half with just 13 seconds gone in the second quarter, leading to 11 free-throw attempts for the Bears in the quarter and a 39-36 halftime lead for Ursuline.

"Our defense was really shaky," Bradshaw said. "We let them drive a lot and then we got lazy and fouled so that was probably our weak spot of the night."

But by the time the game was over, the Bulldogs had outscored Ursuline 22-14 from the line, which included four makes in four attempts by Bradshaw to seal the victory in the closing seconds.

While Notre Dame had an answer on offense most of the night, it could do little to slow down the Bears' scoring, particularly inside.

"We're little," Peters said. "We're very little and we've really got to step up the defense a little bit.

"We tried changing up the defense quite a bit tonight, and at times we caught them off guard, but they would make adjustments."

Ursuline went on a 10-0 run two minutes into the third quarter to turn the six-point Notre Dame lead into a four-point lead.

"We stopped hitting the boards," Bradshaw said. "We let them go around us every single time and they got these easy putbacks. I think that was a major problem in their 10-point turnaround."

Notre Dame went on an 8-2 run of its own after a timeout by Peters.

"We were getting beat pretty good," Peters said. "They were beating us up and down the floor, we weren't playing our game and we just had to stop the bleeding a little bit."

Notre Dame improved to 10-6 with the win.

"We're coming off a stretch of huge games -- big school games, close games," Peters said. "You know we've had a couple wins, losses. We've beat some big teams and then we turn around and lost. I don't know if anyone plays the schedule that we play at this point, so for us to come out and stay composed as much as we can and win I thought was pretty good."

But Peters said there is still room for Notre Dame -- last season's Class 4 runner-up -- to improve.

"I told them the second half of the season starts today," Peters said. "We've got 10 games before districts. Obviously we need to get better on a lot of things."

Ursuline 18 18 23 16 -- 75

Notre Dame 19 20 18 23 -- 80

URSULINE (75) -- Bridget Brotherton 18, Heather Pesigan 15, Mandy Warren 5, Sam Swafford 13, Hannah Weisbrod 10, Holly Beckett 12. FG 27, FT 14-21, F 17. (3-pointers: Brotherton 4, Pesigan 3. Fouled out: Weisbrod)

NOTRE DAME (80) -- Allyson Bradshaw 19, Summer Burger 11, Brooke Bohnert 9, Miranda Fowler 9, Nicole Blattel 3, Kaelin Hale 12, Madison Huckstep 17. (3-pointers: Bradshaw 2, Fowler 3, Hale 2, Huckstep 1. Fouled out: Bohnert)