TIGERS SCRATCH OUT 2OT VICTORY

St. Louis University High boys basketball coach Don Maurer is beginning to wonder if he'll ever be on the winning side of a game at Cape Girardeau Central's Tiger Field House.

Maurer, a Cape Girardeau native who coached at Notre Dame before taking over the SLUH program 14 years ago, fell short again in his home town as the Tigers squeezed out a thrilling 70-68, double-overtime victory Friday night.

"I've never won here, even during my Notre Dame days," said Maurer. "And this is three or four times I've played here now with this (SLUH) bunch. We've had some really close games just like tonight, but we've never won here."

In a final tuneup for both teams prior to next week's Class 4A district tournaments, the Tigers improved to 7-16 while the Junior Billikens fell to 8-16.

"It was exciting. I think this is the third game of at least two overtimes we've played this year," said Central coach Brett Reutzel. "This game kind of typifies the way we've played, especially the last half of the season.

"In my opinion, they've got the best character and biggest hearts of any team I've been around."

On Senior Night in front of an enthusiastic crowd, it was perhaps fitting that three Central seniors accounted for 59 of the Tigers' 70 points.

Michael Cox scored 23 points, T.J. Erlacker had 21 and Chris Cole added 15. Cole hit all four of the Tigers' 3-point baskets.

"We've been starting our five seniors (including J.P. Limbaugh and Justin Welker) since about the second week of January and they've all really come on," Reutzel said. "I thought they all played very well tonight."

Said Erlacker, speaking for the seniors in particular, "It was a good win for us. Being our last home game, we'll never forget it."

SLUH got 23 points from Troy Lindbeck, 22 from Kris Lowes and 13 from Sean Reidy.

The game was extremely close the entire way, with 14 lead changes and seven ties. The largest advantage of the night was six points, Central ahead by that figure early in the second quarter and SLU up by that margin early in the final period.

Central appeared to be in some trouble when SLUH built a 47-41 fourth-quarter lead after a 3-pointer by Lowes early in the period.

But the Tigers rallied and were able to force overtime thanks in large part to junior Jordan White, who hit four pressure-packed free throws in the final 39 seconds of regulation. White made all eight of his foul shots on the night even though the Tigers were just 20 of 31 from the charity stripe as a team.

White's two free throws with 26 seconds left in regulation gave the Tigers a 57-56 lead. SLUH's Tim Vreeland made one of two foul shots with nine seconds remaining to send the squads to overtime knotted at 57-all.

The Tigers built a 62-57 lead in the first four-minute extra period, but SLUH rallied and caught up at 63-63 as Lowes hit a 15-footer with eight seconds left.

Central never trailed in the second overtime. A Cox layup with 45 seconds left put the Tigers up 67-65 and two Erlacker free throws with 24 seconds remaining made it 69-65.

Lindbeck's 3-pointer at the 18-second mark pulled SLUH to within 69-68. Cox made one of two foul shots with 10 seconds left and the Tigers were able to finally celebrate when Lindbeck's 15-footer at the buzzer rimmed out.