It’s been a rough and tough couple of days for the Notre Dame High School basketball teams.
The Lady Irish won the district championship at Silverdale last week while the Notre Dame boys finished second, both earning the right to host first-round games in the region.
That home-court advantage didn’t count for much as the Notre Dame boys lost to Grace Christian on Monday night. It didn’t get any better on Tuesday evening as the Lady Irish got eliminated by The King’s Academy by a final score of 52-47. That’s a tough pill to swallow for these young ladies as this is the third straight year that their season has ended with a loss to the Lady Lions.
Both teams entered Tuesday’s battle with identical 22-7 records. Normally when a tournament champion faces a fourth-place finisher from another district, it’s a mismatch and a game that’s not normally very close.
That wasn’t the case in this latest confrontation as the Lady Lions entered their district tournament as the second seed before getting upset in the semifinals, putting them on the road for the first round of the region.
Those Lady Lions came to Chattanooga with a point to prove and they did just that as they improved to 23-7 with the win. King’s Academy coach Dante Turnipseed may have been the happiest man in Notre Dame’s Jim Phifer Gymnasium after the final horn sounded.
“That was a hard-fought game by both teams, but this is a really tough place to play,” he said after posing for a team photo following the win.
“I thought we shot the ball extremely well, but we really needed something to cheer about after losing our last two games. This is a whole new season and anything can happen, but we came out with lots of positive energy. We’re only looking forward and not backward, but these girls like to make it hard at times.
“I thought we did a good job executing our game plan and we stayed disciplined, even when it got tense. But this was a game of runs and we were able to make some big runs at the right time. But I really feel like we came together as a team tonight,” he added.
Notre Dame coach Jason Hill had the impossible job of trying to find the right words to ease the pain felt by his team members when in fact, there were none. He knew it would be a tremendous challenge for his team long before the opening tip.
“That was a tough draw,” he said matter of factly after leaving the Notre Dame dressing room.
“We knew that we had to play extremely well for the entire 32 minutes as that team had great shooters, superior size and lots of experience. I thought we played well at times, but they seemed to have an answer for everything we did. We had a great season and it wasn’t supposed to end like this, but we played one of the best teams in the state down to the wire and I can only be extremely proud of that,” Hill nodded.
King’s Academy controlled the opening tip and had an instant 2-0 lead when Brady Branam scored on a layup less than five seconds into the game. Mimi Lee knotted the score at 2-2 and scored the next five points for Notre Dame as the lead was 7-5 with 3:06 left in the opening stanza.
Branam sank four straight free throws at the end to give the Lady Lions a 11-10 lead when the first quarter ended. The game was nip and tuck for the entire first half with five lead changes and four tie scores.
Notre Dame got back-to-back 3s from Erin Spurgeon and Callie McCormick for a 24-18 lead with 55 seconds left before Lillian Sims cut that lead in half with a 3 to end the half.
The Lady Lions hit three straight 3s to start the second half for their biggest lead at 30-24 midway through the third quarter, but Notre Dame responded with six straight points to tie the score at 30-30 with 2:17 to play after McCormick scored on a layup.
The visitors scored the final four points of the quarter for a 34-30 lead with eight minutes to play.
Kyle Young scored on a layup with 6:59 to play to extend King’s lead to 36-30, but once again, the Lady Irish battled back and took a 37-36 lead two minutes later after Maliyah Maples scored on a drive down the lane. The Lady Lions then sank three straight 3s while Notre Dame answered with two as the lead changed hands six times in the fourth quarter alone.
Two free throws by Branam put the Lady Lions up 47-43 with 2:25 to play before Mimi Lee’s 3 made it a one-point game with 1:27 left. Young’s bucket with just over a minute left extended King’s lead to 49-46.
McCormick made the first of two free throws with 7.4 seconds before the second make was wiped off by a lane violation. Olivia Loveday got fouled on the inbounds play and made the first free throw for a 50-47 lead with 4.4 seconds. She missed the second, but somehow got the offensive rebound and scored for the final five-point margin.
Young scored 15 points to lead the Lady Lions while Skyler Walden was next with 11, both players sinking three shots from long range. Lee was tops for Notre Dame with 21 points while McCormick finished with 15.
With Branam grabbing six rebounds, King’s Academy had an unofficial 25-15 advantage on the boards. Emily Atchley, Adit Kuol and Walden all had five while Violet Wright had six to lead the Lady Irish.
SCORING SUMMARY
KING’S ACADEMY 11 10 13 18 -- 52
NOTRE DAME 10 14 6 17 -- 47
KING’S ACADEMY (52) – Sims 6, Bitounov, Skyler Walden 11, Atchley 2, Kyle Young 15, Loveday 6, Kuol 4, Branam 8.
NOTRE DAME (47) – Baird, Mimi Lee 21, Steere, Spurgeon 9, Sullivan, Maples 2, Wright, Callie McCormick 15, Brown.
3-POINT GOALS: King’s Academy 9 (Sims 2, Walden 3, Young 3, Loveday); Notre Dame 10 (McCormick 4, Lee 3, Spurgeon 3).
(Email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@gmail.com)