Top four seeds live to see semis

Notre Dame, the second seed, had to battle to the wire to fend off young, improving Cape Central in quarterfinal action at the University High School Tournament Thursday night.

The Bulldogs (6-3) hung on to nip the Tigers 51-49 and advance to tonight's semifinals against No. 3 Jackson.

Seventh-seeded Cape Central (2-7) outscored Notre Dame 10-6 in the final period, but blew any chance for the upset with poor free-throw shooting down the stretch.

"We had a chance to do some damage and cut our losses late in the game, but we didn't get the job done at the free-throw line," said Cape Central coach Derek McCord, whose team lost by 13 to Notre Dame a couple of weeks ago.

Notre Dame took a 49-45 lead into the fourth quarter, but a scoring drought of nearly six minutes allowed Cape Central to close the gap. The Tigers' sophomore point-guard Will Johnson hit a twisting runner in the lane to cap a 5-0 spurt and cut the Bulldogs lead to a single point at 45-44 with about two minutes left.

But Notre Dame answered with a 6-0 run and led 51-44 with about 45 seconds to go after Tyler Cuba's 15-foot baseline jumper and four clutch free-throws -- two each from Scott Wittenborn and Travis Siebert.

A jumper from sophomore guard Ryan Delph and a 3-pointer from Johnson with about three seconds left, sandwiched around three huge misses from the charity stripe, closed out the Tiger scoring. Cape Central shot only 38 percent from the line, hitting 7 of 18.

Cape Central, behind Delph's 12 first-half points, led Notre Dame 30-27 at the half.

"Going into the game we knew it was going to be a battle, said a relieved Notre Dame coach Darrin Scott. "I put their guards, Johnson and Delph, up with anybody we've played.

"They're young, but they're very good. They get to the basket and they make shots."

Delph's 20 points and Johnson's 16 provided the bulk of the offense for the Tigers.

Notre Dame finally got untracked in the third quarter when it outscored the Tigers 18-9 to erase the halftime deficit.

"At halftime, we talked about playing with more heart and rebounding better," said Scott. "We felt they outrebounded us in the first half and that's what hurt us."

Added Scott, "In the second half we wanted to give them one shot. We did that in the third quarter."

Leading Notre Dame's offensive effort were junior guard Travis Siebert with 11 points and senior postman Doug Schaefer with 10.

"Hopefully we can take some positives from this," said McCord. "They were the favorites, but I felt like our kids competed for four quarters."

The Tigers will face Advance at 4:30 p.m. today in a fifth-place semifinal game.