Notre Dame girls basketball weathers storm, puts away Cape Central

If you had told Notre Dame girls basketball coach Renee Peters that her team would start slow, be in a two-point ballgame in the second half and not get a single point from offensive talisman Sam Brennan after halftime, she wouldn't have believed her team would come out on the right side of the result. But the Bulldogs found a way.

Notre Dame weathered a third-quarter storm, took advantage of turnovers and dropped crosstown conference foe Cape Central 49-33 on Monday evening at Cape Central High School.

The host Tigers (5-13) opened the second half by holding ND scoreless for six minutes while closing the gap to just two, 26-24, with 3:05 left in the third quarter. But the visitors answered Central's 5-0 swing with a 9-0 run of their own, as Maddie Urhahn took a feed from Brennan and sank a 3-pointer with two minutes left in the period to spark things.

The Bulldogs (9-10) extended their winning streak to three games after winning the consolation bracket of the 36th Annual Queen of Hearts Tournament over the weekend. Their fourth game in six days, this performance may not have been as pretty as some of those efforts, but the hard-fought result counts the same.

"Credit to Central," Peters said. "They were jumping passing lanes, they were crashing the boards, they were playing aggressive and making us play their game. We fell into that a little bit. I think we went six minutes without scoring, but then we finally get a little separation and the girls found a way to win.

Cape Central's Kassidy Gowan drives past Notre Dame's Sydney Newell during the second quarter of Monday's game at Cape Central High School.

"I'm proud of our girls for finding a way to win, I just wish it was a little smoother and cleaner."

Brennan scored 11 points in the first half as Notre Dame went into halftime with a 26-19 advantage, but she didn't score again. Lexi Welter added nine points and Maddie Urhahn had eight. The Bulldogs shot 18 of 45 (40 percent) from the field.

Cape Central was led by Corrie Reece's nine points while Sidney Tollison added seven. The Tigers shot 25.6 percent on 11-of-43 shooting.

"We don't run the offense like we're supposed to," Central coach Garrett Pannier said, "and when we [do that] we force things, which leads to long rebounds and we're not there to get those rebounds and they have numbers going the other way. That happened to us a lot tonight. When we take long shots and we don't have rebounders there and we're not crashing well, that leads to points for them all night, and that's what killed us."

Turnovers were also punishing for the Tigers, and Notre Dame finished the game with 16 steals. Brennan had five of them.

"I'm never going to fault my girl for lack of effort or heart," Peters said. "They will play hard. It's just being effective sometimes. We've had girls lose teeth and stitches put in -- they will play hard.

"I thought we did get a couple of nice stops down low [from] Lexi Welter, Sam Brennan, Hayli [Chapman]. Allie Ziegler got some key rebounds. Sometimes [those things] lift the team as much as baskets. We had a couple of back-to-back stops followed by a couple of runouts and we were able to finish the game off."

It took two and half minutes for the Bulldogs to turn the two-point game into an 11-point advantage -- the first time either side had led by double digits. It was Urhahn with the exclamation point, capping the run she started by taking an inside-out pass from Welter and dropping it in from outside the arc for a 35-24 lead with 46 seconds remaining in the third quarter.

The visitors went into the fourth quarter up 35-26.

"Maddie and Hayli, both senior starters, did not have a very good first half and we kind of called them out a little bit at halftime," Peters said. "We said, 'Hey, you've got to earn the right to stay on that floor.' Hayli came out and played better defense, Maddie hit a couple shots for us and we went from there."

With 5:47 left to play, Chapman took a feed down low from Welter to lay the ball in and give Notre Dame its biggest lead of the game to that point, 42-28. Sydney Newell scored with just over three minutes left to push the gap to 16 points, and that's where it remained.

While the Bulldogs finished off the game effectively, they didn't open it the same way. Instead it was Cape Central taking an early lead, as Abbie Reece and Tollison scored buckets to put the home side up 4-0 at 5:53 of the first. Corrie Reece later scored on a putback and Quetaja Martin hit the back end of a pair of free throws with 11 seconds left in the period as the Tigers carried an 11-9 lead into the second quarter.

That advantage did not hold up though, as Welter tied things at 11 within the second quarter's first minute, and just 12 seconds later Urhahn took advantage of a steal to score in transition and give Notre Dame its first lead of the game, 13-11.

Corrie Reece answered to give Central back the lead, which was extended thanks to a Katelyn May putback at 4:51 of the period, but Brennan finished at the rim to tie things at 16 at the 3:17 mark.

Faith Esnner scored on the break 20 seconds later to give ND an 18-16 lead, and the Bulldogs never trailed again.

Behind by seven at halftime, Cape Central found a way back into the game by locking things down for a long stretch to start the third quarter. Meanwhile, Abbie Reece scored the basketball and Tollison and Martin combined for three free throws and a two-point game.

"It's not so much adjustments in our defensive scheme as it is an adjustment in the intensity and the heart of the kids out there," Pannier said. "They've got to believe that the kids behind them are going to step up and won't get beat. At times when our defense isn't working, that's what we lose track of -- we lose track of the trust. ... When we're all on the same page and they're all working, it doesn't matter what defense we're in, we can stop anything."

The Tigers could not, however, stop Notre Dame's ensuing 9-0 run, and the game swung to the visitors.

After a busy stretch of games, the Bulldogs get a couple of days of rest before a season-ending gauntlet that includes two strong opponents in the next week -- at Saxony Lutheran on Thursday and hosting Dexter on Monday.

Central will host Farmington on Thursday.

"We've got a tough stretch these next couple games and we're still learning," Pannier said. "I've got to keep them positive and keep them believing that even though we're not seeing results on the scoreboard ... they're starting to get better at things and you're starting to see that on the floor. There are times past -- last year or even earlier this year -- that we would have lost this game by 30 or 40 points. We're making strides. It's hard for young kids to see gains, so they've got to do a better job of trusting each other and the coaches."

Notre Dame 9 17 9 14 -- 49

Cape Central 11 8 7 7 -- 33

NOTRE DAME (49) -- Sam Brennan 11, Hayli Chapman 4, Faith Essner 6, Maddie Urhahn 8, Lexi Welter 9, Allie Ziegler 2, Sydney Newell 2, Brooke Blankenship 3, Megan Heisserer 4. FG 18-45, FT 10-18, F 9. (3-pointers: Urhahn 2, Heisserer. Fouled out: None.)

CAPE CENTRAL (33) -- Sidney Tollison 7, Corrie Reece 9, Katherine Morton 2, Abbie Reece 6, Quetaja Martin 5, Katelyn May 2, Cassidy Gowen 2. FG 11-43, FT 10-14, F 18. (3-pointers: C. Reece. Fouled out: None.)