Notre Dame holds North County to just 20 points, routs Raiders by 26

Notre Dame girls basketball coach Kirk Boeller tried something a little different on Monday night against the North County Raiders that he hadn’t tried a whole lot in previous games this season.

The full-court press he had his girl’s run played big dividends as the Bulldogs thrashed the Raiders 46-20 as Notre Dame picked up its 11th win of the season, limiting North County to just eight second-half points. “It’s really mostly a game-by-game decision on whether we want to use the press,” Boeller said. “We didn’t use it very much against Sikeston but we felt like we wanted to try and see if we could speed them (North County) up and see if we could create some turnovers.”

The press did just that against the Raiders from Bonne Terre, MO., creating havoc as the Bulldog’s length and quickness made North County commit multiple turnovers, particularly in the second and third quarters.

Notre Dame started the contest with some superb interior passing as freshman Kate Rubel found multiple open low post players from her position at the high post that pushed the Bulldog’s lead to 15-8 at the end of the opening quarter.

The second period was when Boeller turned on the pressure, having his girls run a full-court press that at times turned into a trapping press. North County could only push across four points in the eight-minute quarter and saw the host team balloon its lead to 13 points at 25-12.

The third quarter allowed Boeller to once again apply the pressure from the start of the frame as North Country struggled again with the pressure, allowing the Bulldog’s lead to grow even more to 21 points as the Raiders managed just one lone bucket.

With the game well secured, the fourth quarter allowed the Rubel sisters to display some of their overly-unselfish playmaking abilities as all three passed up multiple open shots to try to get other teammates involved in the game. Boeller inserted his bench with just over two minutes left with Notre Dame up by 24 points.

“It’s so funny,” Boeller said chuckling. “All three truly get more excited when a teammate scores as they do when they score. It’s so cool to watch because they want an assist just as badly as they want to make a layup. It’s very rare to see that these days.”

Tori Rubel and Kate Rubel led the offense with 10 points each with both adding numerous assists with creative passing. Brie Rubel added eight points as did fellow freshman Neveah Lucious. Senior Anna Garner added four points as well as four points from Skylar Craft and two points from Eliza Barnette.

Notre Dame (11-1) will head to Springfield, MO. on Thursday to take part in the Nixa Invitational Tournament where they will take on the host Nixa Eagles who are ranked #6 in Class 6 in the most recent state rankings and boast a record of 11-3.

“We’re going to see how we stack up against really good competition,” Boeller said. “Nixa is one of the better teams in the state in Class 6 and we’re going to see where we are as a team and what we need to improve on and having that experience playing against that kind of competition is only going to help us down the stretch of the season.”