Southeast Missourian Christmas Tournament: Notre Dame pounds Central 72-55

The Notre Dame boys basketball team wasn't about to let a shot at the Southeast Missourian Christmas Tournament title slip away Monday night.

The third-seeded Bulldogs pounced on No. 2 Central early and advanced to tonight's championship game with a 72-55 defeat of the Tigers.

"What I liked was our effort from the tip to the end of the game," Notre Dame coach Paul Unterreiner said. "I thought we never let down, and to beat a good team you've got to give an effort the entire game. If you let off for any amount of time they're going to come back on you, and I thought we pretty much kept the pedal to the medal for all 32 minutes, and I was proud of that."

Notre Dame knocked down five of its first six 3-point attempts to take a 15-4 lead with 1 minute, 52 seconds left in the first quarter. Blake Bauwens knocked down the first two, Grant Ressel knocked down a pair and Brendan Boswell had one.

The Bulldogs held a 17-7 advantage going into the second quarter.

"Tonight we happened to get a lot of looks inside-out early and we knocked them down," Unterreiner said. "The first 12 or 15 points we had were off 3s, and I'm not going to tell my guys not to take the shot if it's open. I have faith in those guys shooting the ball, and they know that and they don't hesitate to shoot."

The Bulldogs connected on just one 3-point attempt in the second quarter and the Tigers trimmed it to five points at halftime, 24-19. Central only made two baskets, but made 8 of 12 free throws in the second.

Notre Dame's Quinn Poythress sinks two-points in the second quarter of the Bulldogs semifinal game against Cape Central, Monday, Dec. 29, 2014, during the Southeast Missourian Christmas Tournament at the Show Me Center. Notre Dame won 72-55. (Laura Simon)

"Tough game. Notre Dame played very well, shot the ball well and played a tough game," Central coach Drew Church said. "Every shot that we took we had to fight for. It was physical, fouled us hard, but that's the game of basketball. They were more physical and tougher than we were tonight."

After Notre Dame scored the first two baskets of the second half, a three-point play by Al Young pulled the Tigers within six at 28-22.

The Bulldogs then used a 10-2 run to take a 14-point lead with 3:38 left in the third.

A basket by Chase Hagerty pulled Central within 38-30 two minutes later, but they'd never come any closer.

"We've won six or seven straight, and with wins it kind of masks some of the things that you don't do very well. Tonight they were magnified," Church said. "*... There's some things that we've got to get better at, just us. And one of them's competing. Tonight, I don't know what the deal was, but they had more intensity than we did, and that's something that I've got to do a better job of, making sure that we're ready to play. But I think their game plan was good, being physical. They play so many guys they really don't care about fouls, and tonight just wasn't our night. It was the perfect storm."

Notre Dame made 10 of 10 free-throw attempts, all but two coming in the fourth quarter, to seal its win. Quinn Poythress had 21 points -- 19 in the second half -- to pace Notre Dame.

"Miracle. I don't know where that came from," Unterreiner said of his team's 100 percent free-throw shooting. "We're a 59 percent free-throw team. I don't talk to these guys about free throws because the more you think about it the worse it's going to get. They're good shooters, obviously, you saw that displayed in the first quarter, so why even think about it? Just go in there and knock it down. I think it's just a focus thing. I think tonight we were focused on the task at hand, and we went up there and knocked them down."

Central forward Andre Statam finished with just one point in the game and sat out most of the second half. Senior guard Jalen Reddin, who finished with three points, left the bench during the fourth quarter and appeared to be headed for the locker room.

"I played the guys that needed to be playing," Church said when asked about Statam and Reddin.

Al Young led Central with 24 points while Peyton Montgomery finished with 11.

The Tigers face No. 4 Scott County Central at 6 p.m. Tuesday in the third-place game.

"They're down, and they need to be down. I'm not one of those that's just, 'Hey, forget this,'" Church said of his players. "No, we need to know this and we need to remember this game. We always talk about the definition of character. Everybody can be really tough and 'rah rah' when things are going great, but when it gets tough and things aren't going right, you're going to see who has true character. That's what we always preach, but you were able to see some of that tonight. Who's going to get down in the tough times, really play hard and be a good teammate?"

The Bulldogs and top-seeded Jackson will meet in the championship game at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday.

"Jackson is an unbelievable team with a great coach," Unterreiner said. "He'll have a great game plan against us. I know he will, he always does. They've got depth all the way down that bench, and they've got height and they're big and they're long. It's going to be fun to play for a championship. We're the only two teams that get to say we can do that, and that's something that we take great pride in, and win or lose tomorrow we're going to give the best effort we can, and we're going to have fun."

Notre Dame 17 7 20 28 -- 72

Cape Central 7 12 13 23 -- 55

NOTRE DAME (72) -- Quinn Poythress 21, Grant Ressel 14, Tanner Shively 13, Blake Bauwens 9, Dean Crippen 7, Thomas Himmelberg 5, Brendan Boswell 3. FG 28, FT 10-10, F 24. (3-pointers: Bauwens 3, Ressel 2, Boswell 1. Fouled out: none.)

CENTRAL (55) -- Al Young 24, Peyton Montgomery 11, Kway'Chon Chisom 8, Chase Hagerty 5, Nikylus Thompson 3, Jalen Reddin 3, Andre Statam 1. FG 14, FT 23-36, F 16. (3-pointers: Young 2, Montgomery 1, Reddin 1. Fouled out: none.)