ND WINS; HAWKS SEE GAME FLY SOUTH LATE

If the Kelly Hawks had a time machine, they'd travel back to the 4:53 mark of the fourth quarter Friday night.

At that moment, Kelly owned a 55-53 lead and looked poised to pull off an upset. But the Hawks self-destructed down the stretch and Notre Dame finished the game with a 14-0 run and pulled away with a closer-than-it-sounds 68-55 home victory.

Kelly had turned the ball over just nine times in the first three quarters, but coughed it up six times in the final five minutes. On top of that, the Hawks (7-5) suddenly went cold from the field, hitting just one of nine shots, seven of which came from behind the 3-point line.

"With us not having a lot of experience and having a lot of young players, we just didn't handle the late-game situations very well," said Kelly coach Kent Mangels. "It wasn't so much what they did as what we did to ourselves. We've been in some tight games, but this is such a tough place to play."

Notre Dame (8-5) took the lead for good with 4:20 left when Adam Obermiller scored on a fast-break layup to make the score 56-55.

The Bulldogs, trailing 55-54, made a defensive adjustment which forced three quick turnovers and switched the momentum into their favor.

"We took a time-out and discussed what we wanted to do with Jamie Essner," said Notre Dame coach Chris Neff of Kelly's point guard who scored a team-high 15 points. "He was getting entry passes in so easy and then sometimes he would fake the pass and penetrate. We made a decision to let him make the pass to the corner then double-team the pass. And that amounted to three quick turnovers."

Notre Dame had its best shooting percentage night of the season, hitting 45 percent from the field and 53 percent from 3-point range on eight of 15 from behind the arc.

"I'll take that every night," said Neff. "A lot of things we did tonight, we didn't do at the beginning of the season. Lately, we've shortened up who will take those shots. When you only let three or four guys shoot (the three), you shoot less, but your percentage will go up."

"Notre Dame shot the ball extremely well," said Mangels. "That's something they didn't do at the beginning of the season."

Josh Eftink and Chris Dirnberger each had the hot hand for Notre Dame. Eftink scored a season-high 20 points, while Dirnberger added 16, 12 of which came on 3-pointers.

"We were lucky to have Josh Eftink and Chris Dirnberger playing well offensively tonight," said Neff.

Notre Dame led 13-8 after the first quarter, but Kelly came back and both teams swapped leads until Notre Dame led 31-29 at halftime.

The Bulldogs came out on fire in the third quarter, hitting four consecutive threes two each by Eftink and Dirnberger and led 44-35 with 4:52 to go. But Kelly came storming back, taking a 49-48 lead into the fourth quarter.

Kelly held its biggest lead of the game when sophomore Michael Romas who scored 10 points nailed a three to begin the fourth quarter, giving his team a 52-48 lead.

Despite the loss, Mangels was pleased with his team's performance.

"I'm so proud of these guys," Mangels said. "We came into a difficult environment and played well."

Kelly was anemic from 3-point range, hitting just one of 15 attempts. Many, however, were taken late in the game in desperation.

"That's not our strength," Mangels said. "We've got some kids who can get hot, but our strength is to get the ball to the box. (Shooting threes) is not something we stress a lot."

What kept Kelly in the game was getting to the foul line. Kelly made 19 of its 28 free throws. Essner alone hit nine of 12 and seemed to get to the line at will in the first half.