ND SPLITS 2A SECTIONAL GAMES; CARUTHERSVILLE BLOCKS BULLDOGS' PATH, WINS 69-57

Notre Dame had the size and strength.

Caruthersville had the speed and quickness.

Chalk one up for the fast guys.

Caruthersville, continuing its best season ever under first-year coach Kevin Williams, ran past Notre Dame 69-57 Wednesday night in a Class 2A sectional boys basketball game played in front of a huge crowd at Cape Girardeau Central High School.

The Tigers will carry a 22-6 record into Saturday night's quarterfinal contest in Park Hills against Cardinal Ritter.

Notre Dame ends its successful season with a 20-9 record.

"We played pretty well," said Williams with a sly grin.

That would be putting it mildly. The Tigers put on a virtual clinic, particularly in the early going, to turn what many people thought would be a close game into a blowout that really wasn't as close as the final score indicates.

Caruthersville, led by the brilliant all-around play of Norman Prather and the 33 points of Erick Hubbard -- who are the Tigers' tallest players at 6-foot-3 and gave up size to several of the Bulldogs -- clicked on all cylinders in roaring to a big early lead and never really letting up.

"You look are our schedule, and we've played good in the big games," said Williams, who spent the past few seasons as a student assistant coach at Southeast Missouri State University. "These guys step up. They were ready to play at 8 a.m. this morning.

"We shot the ball well, and anytime you get hot from the perimeter, that just opens up the middle. We had a lot of good basketball plays, a lot of backdoor layups. I didn't even have to raise my voice."

Many of Hubbard's points were layups off great passes from Prather, who is no doubt one of Southeast Missouri's premier all-around athletes.

Prather scored only eight points, but he still was able to dominate the game with 12 assists, nine rebounds, four steals and four blocked shots. And he threw down a pair of highlight-reel dunks, including a particularly spectacular one-handed follow jam.

"Norman is just so unselfish," Williams said. "If we had needed him to score, he would have done that. Whatever we need to win, he does."

The Tigers came out on fire, hitting nine of 15 first-quarter shots and committing just one turnover in the opening period. Coupled with Notre Dame's 2-for-10 shooting start and four early turnovers and it was a bad combination for the Bulldogs. Notre Dame never led and fell behind 21-7 after one quarter.

"The first three or four minutes of the game, we weren't patient. We didn't work the ball and get it into the post like we wanted," said Notre Dame coach Darrin Scott, who is in his first season with the Bulldogs. "We took some quick shots, they hit their shots and they really played well."

Notre Dame actually played pretty well over the final three periods but the Bulldogs never really got back into the game.

Caruthersville led 35-21 at halftime and moved ahead 39-21 early in the second half.

Notre Dame managed to pull within nine points twice in the third quarter, but each time Caruthersville had an answer as the Tigers led 49-37 entering the final period.

The Bulldogs were within 49-39 early in the fourth quarter, but a 7-0 Caruthersville run pretty much sealed the verdict. And Prather's second monster jam of the night gave the Tigers their biggest lead at 65-46 with three minutes left.

"When we cut it to nine twice, they answered every time," Scott said. "I was proud of our effort. A couple of times, we could have rolled over but we kept playing hard."

Chris Springer added 14 points for the Tigers, who shot 56 percent for the game (28 of 50).

Notre Dame, which shot 47 percent (23 of 49), got 19 points from Jonathan Ressel and 15 from Cory Beussink.