ND STREAKS PAST CAPE CENTRAL

Tuesday night's Notre Dame-Cape Central game would rank on basketball's aesthetic scale somewhere between ugly and hideous.

But Notre Dame, unable to get the ball inside and unable to hit many shots, managed to battle to a 48-40 victory over Central, who found it difficult to get off good shots, period, against a much taller Bulldog lineup.

"I was proud of the way we played," said Notre Dame coach Darrin Scott. "I told them this was like a district win. These are the type of games you have to win; where you don't shoot well. We were able to get to the foul line and we rebounded."

It was Notre Dame's sixth straight win. The Bulldogs have won 10 of their last 11 games.

Central, playing at home, fell to 2-11. The Tigers were hoping to gain some momentum after last week's overtime loss to New Madrid County Central, last year's Class 3A state champs.

But the Tigers hung in there.

The Tigers, who have no player taller than 6-foot-3, held Notre Dame's three leading scorers -- 6-5 Jonathan Ressel, 6-4 Mark Rubel and 6-6 Doug Schaefer -- to only 24 points. Rubel and Ressel had nine apiece, while Schaefer chipped in with six.

"I thought we did a great job defensively," said Central coach Brett Reutzel. "We held them to 48 points and that's very good on our part. But we still gave up too many offensive rebounds."

Neither team shot very well. Notre Dame shot 38 percent from the field, including just two of 10 threes. Cape Central made 33 percent of its shot, including two of six from behind the arc.

"We did some things and took away some of their shots," said Scott. "But they took some things away from us, too. They made us be more patient than we wanted to be early and they did some things so we couldn't get the ball into the post."

It could be argued that Notre Dame won the game at the free-throw line. The Bulldogs hit 14 of their 21 foul shots, while Central made 6 of 10.

After the first quarter of play, Notre Dame led 14-11 and the Bulldogs led just 22-21 at halftime. The Bulldogs opened the third quarter on a 6-0 run and entered the fourth quarter leading 33-27.

Notre Dame's Cory Beussink scored a team-high 10 points.

Cape Central's Michael Cox led all scorers with 11, while Chris Cole added 10 for the Tigers.

Notre Dame will put its winning streak on the line Friday night when it plays Jackson -- the last team to beat the Bulldogs -- on the road.

"I feel like we've still got room for improvement, but I feel we're getting better at the time of the year that you want to play your best basketball," Scott said.