Notre Dame boys basketball team set to face Potosi in sectional

Saturday night's Class 4 District 1 championship game between Notre Dame and Sikeston was nothing short of a dogfight.

Notre Dame came away with a 63-56 victory but not before a couple players sustained injuries -- sophomore guard Blake Bauwens tweaked his back, and senior guard Grant Ressel left in the first half and was later diagnosed with a torn ACL.

The injuries aren't much of a concern for Bulldogs coach Paul Unterreiner, who expects Bauwens to return for his team's Class 4 sectional against Potosi (20-7) at 6 p.m. today at Jackson High School.

"For us, it's just kind of been next-man-up all year," Unterreiner said. "We're not hitting the panic button or anything at all."

Notre Dame (24-4) will take on a Potosi team that possesses an almost identical style of play. The Trojans are coached by Brett Hale, who's the son of former Notre Dame coach and current athletic director Paul Hale.

"We happen to run a similar style that Paul Hale started at Notre Dame, so our defenses are exactly the same," Unterreiner said. "We both play the match-up zone. We both play the press pretty much exactly the same way, so we'll be very familiar with that style of play. Essentially, we practice against that style of play every day, so really, it will come down to who executes the best will come out on top."

The key to slowing down Potosi starts with 6-foot-5 senior Dylan Coleman, whose averaging a double-double with 33.5 points and 15.9 rebounds per game. Coleman is also a force on the defensive end, where he's producing 4.7 blocks per game.

"That's going to be the best post player that we've seen all year, for sure, and he'll present challenges," Unterreiner said. "I'm pretty confident in our post players, and the fact that we run so many post players out there, hopefully we can wear them out throughout the game."

Colby Eckhoff, a 6-2 senior, is also averaging double figures with 12.9 points per game for the Trojans, who are shooting 52 percent from the field this season, including 37 percent from beyond the arc.

Notre Dame has won 21 of its last 22 games and is led by 6-foot-7 senior Quinn Poythress, who's averaging a team-high 20.5 points and 6.9 rebounds per game.

Poythress has been the Bulldogs' unquestioned leader all season, but Unterreiner said he's been pleased with the way everyone else has been contributing down the stretch.

"Everybody's going to be keying in on Quinn, and that's the way it's been all year, and Quinn's done a good job of being able to play off that and distribute the ball. But he's also scored a lot for us," Unterreiner said. "As you come down later in the stretch of the season, coaches tend to adjust to a style of play to try and get wins. Earlier in the year, people are just trying to get better at what they do, so now we really have to work on getting everybody involved. As you're seeing, everybody is stepping up and doing what they can do. We've got a lot of guys who play for our team that could average double figures if we wanted them to, but they've accepted the roles that they've been assigned and really have just taken off in those roles, which has made us pretty successful as a team."

Notre Dame has a host of players that are shooting better than 40 percent from 3-point range this season, including Poythress (41 percent), Brendan Boswell (45 percent) and Thomas Himmelberg (45 percent).

"The fact that Quinn Poythress is on this team allows for a lot of easy shots for a lot of the other guys, and they know. They credit him for that, and he credits them whenever he gets open looks for the things they do for him," Unterreiner said. "The bottom line is, at the end of the day, no one cares who scores points as long as we come out on top."

Today's winner will advance to the state quarterfinals to face either Lutheran South or Wesminster Christian Academy at 6 p.m. Saturday at the Farmington Civic Center in Farmington, Missouri.