RAMS GUN DOWN 'DOGS BEFORE OVERFLOW GYM

As a group of young fans approached the entrance to Notre Dame High School's gymnasium, a Notre Dame official was ready at the door to tell them the gym was full.

"But it's the game of the year," the young fans pleaded.

Those students didn't get into Friday night's game between Notre Dame and Scott City, and they missed what will go down as one of the top individual performances Southeast Missouri will see this season.

Scott City's Jon Beck, a 5-foot-10 sophomore guard, hit 10 3-pointers, scored 37 points and led the Rams to a 85-61 win over the rival Bulldogs (5-6). The game was a rematch of last season's Class 2A, District 2 title game.

Beck tied a school record for 3-pointers in a game, set last year by Mike Workman. Beck hit five of his threes in the first quarter as he nearly doubled Notre Dame's point total as a team by himself.

After missing its first five shots to open the game, Scott City (14-1) hit 12 of its next 14 attempts from the field. The Rams missed their first 3-point attempt, then hit the next seven without a miss.

Scott City led 31-8 after one quarter. The Rams led by as many as 38 points in the third quarter.

"Jon Beck was just on fire and he proved why he's one of the best sophomores in the state. Any time he touched the ball it was instant offense," said Scott City coach Derek McCord, whose team is currently ranked seventh in the state in Class 2A.

Beck's performance also impressed Notre Dame coach Chris Janet.

"Jon Beck is I think one of the better shooters in Southeast Missouri," said Janet. "He has a nice touch. We allowed him to get some really good looks at the basket and allowed him to get his confidence up early. We didn't go out and defend him and I don't know why.

"The first half was very embarrassing."

Scott City's balance presented a problem defensively for Notre Dame. The Bulldogs focused their defense on the Rams' inside duo of 6-4 Dustin Cauble and 6-5 Chris Sisk, leaving the perimeter open.

"We had pretty good balance again. Tonight they doubled down on our post players and that just really opened things up outside and allowed us to get 14 threes," said McCord. "That's one thing that's going to make us hard to guard is that we have such good balance; we've got an inside and an outside attack."

Sisk had 13 points and Cauble added 12. Notre Dame was led by Nathan McGuire's 19 points.

Said Janet: "We were really trying to bottle up Cauble -- and we did a great job on Cauble I thought. He's an all-state player averaging close to 30 points per game. But we still had to know where their 3-point shooters were at all times."

Notre Dame outscored the Rams 41-31 in the second half to make the score a little more respectable.

What could have made the score a lot more respectable would have been the return of Notre Dame's Dirk Dirnberger. Dirnberger, a 6-5 senior and the Bulldogs' leading scorer and rebounder, watched the game on the bench with a severely sprained ankle.

Dirnberger is expected to be back by district tournament time, which could make a rematch much more interesting.

"When we get the big boy there back on the floor we're a totally different basketball team, obviously," said Janet. "There's no secret when you take out 19 points and 10 or 11 rebounds a game that's its going to hurt your basketball team."

Notre Dame won the JV game 59-58 in overtime. Josh Eftink and Michael Wehner both had 15 points for the Bulldogs and Lance Amick and Tim Huckstep both had 15 points for Scott City.