Millham's 28 points pace Bulldogs' girls team

With a stifling press and a 28-point effort from Ashley Millham, the Notre Dame girls basketball team pushed its winning streak to seven games with a 50-37 win over Central Tuesday at the Show Me Center.

The Bulldogs (12-7) turned to the full-court press right out of the gate and caused Central to burn two timeouts less than halfway through the first quarter.

Bulldogs coach Jerry Grim said while their press was solid against Central, they still need to keep working.

"We're still working on it," he said. "But it's getting better and better. Every day in practice we work on our press, and it's paying off."

With the Tigers (11-8) frustrated on offense, Notre Dame went to leading scorer Millham to spark the offense. As the Tigers worked to take away Millham's outside shot, Millham moved inside and scored one short jumper after another.

"She's hard to stop," Grim said of his star.

Despite Millham's shooting and Central's inability to break down Notre Dame's press, the Tigers trailed only by three points after the first quarter. Central stayed close with the inside play of Vicki Wilson, whose pounding of the offensive boards leading to six first-half points and a team-high 13 in the game.

Even with Wilson's work the Tigers couldn't keep the Bulldogs' offense down. Notre Dame used eight second-quarter points from Millham and outscored the Tigers 16-6 in the quarter to take a 29-16 lead into halftime.

"When we quit giving them second shots we stopped their scoring," Grim said.

Central could muster only eight field goals in the first half and didn't make it to the free-throw line once.

"We had a hard time getting the ball up the floor," Tigers coach Sheila Midgett said.

But just when it looked certain Notre Dame would cruise to its seventh straight victory up 33-18 early in the third, the Tigers awoke. With the help of early fouls from the Bulldogs, the Tigers went to the line seven times in the quarter and closed the third with a 9-2 run to pull within eight.

"We started picking up a few fouls there, especially in the third quarter," Grim said. "We were just off there a little bit."

The Bulldogs weren't off for long. Millham scored the Bulldogs' first eight points in the fourth quarter and helped push the lead back to double digits.

Notre Dame continued to pressure the Tigers and kept them from get their game going offensively. Megan McDonald scored a few buckets off the drive, but Central's leading scorer, Alex Wieser, was kept quiet.

Midgett said her team prepared for the Notre Dame press but just couldn't perform against it.

"We knew what to expect, and we knew what we wanted to do," she said. "We just didn't do it."

Once Notre Dame took control of the ball with three minutes remaining in the game it was all but over. Central couldn't put pressure on the ball and was forced to use six quick fouls to put the Bulldogs on the line. Erin Pfau's three free throws, her only points of the night, put the game out of reach at 46-33.

While Millham nearly single-handedly outscored the Tigers, Wieser was held to eight points.

"The last time we played her she had 34 points," Grim said of Wieser. "Ali Tyson really just stopped Wieser."

"We just kept our intensity up and shut Alex down," Bulldogs forward Sommer McCauley added.

After going into the Christmas break at 2-6, the Bulldogs have gone 10-1 since and are 5-0 in the SEMO Conference. Included in their seven-game streak are wins against SEMO Conference powerhouses Jackson and Poplar Bluff.

"We've got to keep working," Grim said. "We can't allow ourselves to be satisfied with where we're at."

Midgett said with the way Notre Dame is playing, the Bulldogs could be hard to beat down the stretch.

"That's not the same Notre Dame team we saw earlier," she said, referring to Central's early season win over Notre Dame at the Farmington Tournament.

jjoffray@semissourian.com

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