Notre Dame outscored Hamilton Heights, 9-1, in overtime on Friday night and ran its early season record to 3-1.

Notre Dame beat Hamilton Heights, 67-59, in the boys basketball game as Rashawn Avery led the Irish with 25 points and seven rebounds.

D.J. Bowles, who scored seven points in overtime, added 19 points for the Irish. Nick Ellis was 7 of 8 from the field and scored 14 points and Stedmon Ford had three steals and two assists in the overtime. He had five assists for the game.

Josh Hunt and Jake Dockery scored 22 points each for Hamilton Heights (4-4).

"I cannot say enough good things about Hamilton Heights,’’ Notre Dame coach Tommy Fox said. “Their effort tonight was impressive, their kids play extremely hard, and they have tough kids.

"Josh Hunt is an incredible shooter, he has unlimited range. We knew this and our scouting report was to not let him catch it, if he did catch make him dribble. Nevertheless he got free in transition and made three or four threes from at least 25 feet. Their big kid(Jake Dockery) is good, too. We could not keep him off the glass. Duke Stone does a good job too, they are well coached."

Fox said Hamilton Heights’ zone bothered his players.

"They played zone and we could not buy one from outside,’’ Fox said. “Seven for 33 from three is not good, and we got good looks. It was just one of those nights when shots would not fall. We tried to slow the game down late and make them match up and play man-to man but we have not practiced this enough, and it caused us to get out of rhythm.

“I always tell my guys you have to buckle down, match up man-to-man and get stops when the game is on the line, and we did this enough times to pull it out in the end. We got stops with man defense in overtime. They did not score a field goal in overtime. Stedmon Ford had three steals and two assists in overtime and his defense was huge. Thank goodness we forced 19 turnovers.’’

Fox praised Nick Ellis for his defensive play.

“Nick Ellis did a good job defensively particularly late on Hunt and early in the press,’’ Fox said. “Rashawn Avery had his best game this year. He shot it real well and was effective in the press and on the offensive glass. The coaching staff challenged Rashawn this week to be more assertive and aggressive on both ends. We saw the real Rashawn tonight."

HAMILTON HEIGHTS GIRLS 49, NOTRE DAME 44: Jordan Wolcott led Hamilton Heights with 17 points and Madison Cox scored 15 for Notre Dame.

“I was proud of our girls,’’ Notre Dame coach R.J. Avery said. “We played hard, but Hamilton Heights just did a little better job than us tonight.’’

SUMMARIES

Boys

HAMILTON HEIGHTS (59) – Hunt 22, Harbin 9, Dockery 22, Cushman 3, Reno 3, Massey, Ricketts, Baskette.

NOTRE DAME (67) – Ford 4, Avery 25, Long, Ellis 14, Gunter, Bowles 19, Davenport 1, Sutton 4.

Hamilton Heights…..12 16 21 14 1 – 67
Notre Dame…………22 11 14 6 9 -- 59

Three-point goals – Hunt 6, Avery 4, Bowles 3, Cushman, Reno.

Girls

HAMILTON HEIGHTS (49) – Wolcott 17, Carlisle 12, Antonialli 7, Fumiere 6, Watt 8, Goza, Stovall.

NOTRE DAME (44) – Cox 15, McLaughlin 6, Freye 6, Clabattone 2, Hamon 4, Picard 2, Jones 2, Lundquist 4, Gadd.

Hamilton Heights ……17 10 14 18 – 49
Notre Dame………….9 7 16 12 – 44

Three-point goals – Cox 4, Carlisle 2, Antoniali.

(E-mail Stan Crawley at wscrawley@earthlink.net)