Perryville comeback falls short against ND

PERRYVILLE, Mo. -- Joel Roth had seen enough at halftime.

He was tired of watching his team wilt against bigger-name programs. He witnessed Notre Dame jump out to a 23-5 lead after the first quarter Tuesday.

Roth's frustration finally boiled over, but he was hesitant to share his words after Tuesday's loss to Notre Dame.

"Probably can't repeat it," he said about his halftime speech. "Basically told them to play harder or get out of my gym."

Roth's Perryville boys basketball team dropped lopsided games to Sikeston, Farmington and De Soto earlier this season before falling at Central 70-16 a week ago today. Tuesday's first half was the final straw.

"We embarrassed ourselves last week against Cape Central," he said. "We're having a good season. We have a shot at 20 wins. But every time we play a notable team like a Notre Dame or a Cape Central or a Farmington or a De Soto, we've gotten beat by 20 or 30. I think some of it is just the name. We're scared of the name. I basically told them to quit being scared."

Roth's Pirates responded by outscoring the Bulldogs by six points in the second half, but the early hole was too much to overcome, and Notre Dame posted the 63-53 win.

"Coach gave it to us at halftime," Perryville junior Ross Moldenhauer said. "We just played man defense in the second half and got after it more than we did in the first half."

Not much went wrong for Notre Dame (11-11) in the first half. The Bulldogs shot 90 percent (9 of 10) from the field in the first quarter and followed that by shooting 66 percent (6 of 9) in the second quarter. But Perryville (16-6) started to show signs of life at the end of the first half by scoring the last seven points before the intermission.

"We got out to a pretty good lead," Notre Dame junior Jonathan Lynch said. "We can't ever settle. We've got to keep playing always. The start of the second half, we kind of settled and let them get back into it. We've got to stay up and continue the same intensity that got us up in the first half."

The Pirates started the third quarter on a 9-2 run to cut the Bulldogs' lead to nine points and make things interesting.

"It was the same offense we were running before just attack and move and cut and want the ball," Roth said. "In the first half, we were making the same cuts but we weren't cutting with our hands up. We were cutting to get away from the ball. They didn't want it. They didn't want the ball. They wanted someone else to have to make the decision."

The Pirates scored the last five points of the third quarter to cut Notre Dame's lead to 45-39.

"The emotion really got into it," Notre Dame coach Kevin Roberts said. "Our goal was just to slow down. It will come eventually. Just make passes, screen and throw it inside and we'll eventually score. But we get so sped up it's now, now, now, now, now. If we just take our time, we'll be pretty good."

The third quarter was the lone quarter that Notre Dame didn't shoot at least 60 percent from the field. The Bulldogs went 3 of 9 from the floor in the third quarter, which helped Perryville close its deficit.

Notre Dame heeded its coach's advice to start the fourth quarter by calming down. Nathan Meystedt scored a pair of easy buckets in the first minute to push the Bulldogs' lead back to 10 points, and Perryville got no closer than six points the rest of the way.

Notre Dame 23 14 8 18 -- 63

Perryville 5 16 18 14 -- 53

NOTRE DAME (63) -- Joseph Siebert 4, Jacob Tolbert 16, Jonathan Lynch 18, Nathan Meystedt 12, Cody Heisserer 4, Alex Beussink 9. FG 21, FT 18-25, F 20. (3-pointers: Tolbert 1, Lynch 1, Beussink 1. Fouled out: Tolbert)

PERRYVILLE (53) -- Jared Thieret 13, Ross Moldenhauer 9, Jake Dobbelare 5, Bryce Weibrecht 16, Colby Brown 3, Cody Call 2, Alex Robinson 5. FG 19, FT 9-19, F21. (3-pointers: Moldenhauer 3, Brown 1, Weibrecht 1, Robinson 1. Fouled out: Jared Hotop)