Notre Dame spoils Dexter's senior night

The Notre Dame Lady Bulldogs quickly took control of the game Monday evening to spoil senior night for the Lady Bearcats at the Bearcat Event Center. The Lady Bulldogs rolled to a 65-23 victory.

Injured Dexter senior Caitlin Giles took a ceremonial tip to the applause of the home crowd before leaving the game. Giles along with Maddie Glaus were honored prior to the game.

“We are going to miss both of those girls,” said Dexter Coach Eric Sitze. “They have been great leaders this year, they work hard, they are coachable kids. They try hard, they have really improved a lot.”

Notre Dame's Kate Rubel recorded the game's first four points before Dexter's Maddie Glaus answered with a three pointer. The Lady Bulldogs then went on a 4-0 run before Dexter's Kate Nichols sank a free throw to make it 8-4. Notre Dame then finished the quarter on a 9-0 run to take a 17-4 lead into the second.

“Notre Dame is a really good basketball team, they play a tough schedule, we struggled with their size and length, we don't see that,” said Sitze. “As a matter of fact this is the the first time we've seen that kind of length this year.”

“We struggled without Caitlin (Giles) out there tonight, we tried to make some adjustments both offensively and defensively tonight,” said Sitze. “Notre Dame is a tough game to try to do some of that after being off for a week. We are just going to try to learn from it and build off of it.”

“Number one I thought we played really well defensively,” said Notre Dame coach Kirk Boeller. “In the half court on the defensive end, disrupted a lot of shots, that's where a lot of our success has come from so far this year.”

Notre Dame kept the pressure on, opening the second quarter with a 9-1 run to extend the lead to 26-5. the Lady Bearcats kept fighting adding treys by Glaus and Nichols. Dexter's Abbie Lolyd added a jumper in the paint but Notre Dame took a 40-15 lead into the locker room with three point buckets from Tori Rubel, Skylar Craft and Brie Rubel.

Boeller spoke about the momentum his team is hoping for going into districts in a few weeks.

“Everything we do when we start in November leads to the postseason,” said Boeller. “Getting reps, getting four quarters as much as we can and continuing to grow. Every game is important because it puts us in a place where we want to be hopefully end of February.”

“We are just trying to figure out things again without Caitlin, we are trying a few things and making some adjustments here and there,” said Sitze. “I am glad we have a few weeks and about 6 or 7 games to work on it (before districts). Because you can tell we need some good games, we need some good competition, we need to be pushed and see how we react to it.”

The Lady Bull Dogs were lead by Tori Rubel with 20 points, Brie Rubel had 13, Nevaeh Lucious and Elisa Barnette each had 8, Kate Rubel had 7, Skylar Craft 5 points and Anna Garner and Lolah Wunderlich each had 2 points..

Dexter was lead by Kate Nichols with 7 points, Maddie Glaus had 6 points, Abbie Lloyd scored 5 points, Allison Turnbo had 4 and Klaire Essner had 1 point.

The Lady Bearcats will next be in action at Cape Central on Thursday evening. The Lady Bulldogs will host Jackson on Thursday.