HIGH SCHOOL: NOTRE DAME BOYS LOSE GAME TO DEXTER, BUT GAIN A BABY

Tuesday night will be a night first-year Notre Dame coach Darrin Scott will never forget.

And the reason has nothing to do with his Bulldogs giving highly touted Dexter all it could handle in a 79-63 loss at Notre Dame High.

Just an hour before game time, Scott's wife, Jana Kay, gave birth to a baby girl, Madison.

"It could've been a double whammy," said Scott said, reflecting on his team's chances at beating a team most consider one of the top two or three squads in Southeast Missouri. "But any time you have a baby, you have to consider it a good day."

While his wife and daughter were resting at a nearby hospital, Scott's Bulldogs were laboring on the court, giving Dexter fits.

Notre Dame (2-2) held a lead with 1:35 to go in the third quarter, but Dexter went on an 17-4 run at the end of the third quarter and the beginning of the fourth and the Bulldogs couldn't recover.

"They guarded well," said Dexter coach Paul Hale. "We had a hard time scoring."

Returning all-stater Brett Hale, who has signed a letter of intent to play at Southeast Missouri State University, had an off night but still scored a game-high 21 points with eight coming in the fourth quarter.

"We really guarded better than I expected," Scott said.

Notre Dame was led defensively by 6-foot-6 junior center Doug Schaefer who blocked numerous shots and deflected many passes in the paint.

Offensively, the Bulldogs used, for the most part, wise shot selection to hang with the Bearcats.

Notre Dame shot 44 percent from the field. Mark Rubel led the Bulldogs, sinking five 3-pointers and scoring 17 points. Schaefer scored 14 and sophomore guard Travis Seibert scored 13.

The biggest problem for the Bulldogs was turnovers. Notre Dame coughed up the ball 24 times.

The Bulldogs made seven of their 11 shots -- including all three of their 3-point attempts -- in the third quarter, but nine turnovers prevented them from breaking out to a sizable lead.

Perhaps the biggest basket of the game came at the end of the third quarter. With 3.7 seconds to go, Notre Dame turned the ball over under its own basket. Dexter got the ball out of bounds and ran a beautiful fast break as Chris Carr scored at the buzzer to put the Bearcats up 54-49.

"That was a big basket," Hale said. "That might have been a momentum swing right there."