St. Dominic falls in semifinals
Ryan Prewitt/Suburban Journals | Cape Notre Dame junior guard Allyson Bradshaw (left) gets tangled up with St. Dominic forward Lauren Needham going for a loose ball.
COLUMBIA, Mo. — In the eyes of St. Dominic girls basketball coach Suzie Mennemeier, Friday’s 62-55 loss to Notre Dame (Cape Girardeau) in the Class 4 semifinals at Mizzou Arena should have been more of an eye-opener for the rest of the state than it should have been a downer for her team.
That’s because the Crusaders led most of the way before finally falling to, in Mennemeier’s view, the heavily-favored Bulldogs.
“We almost did it, we just kind of ran out of gas in the fourth quarter,” Mennemeier said. “I don’t think anybody gave us a chance in this game from all the media we heard about beforehand. We just went out and played the hardest we could and came up short.”
Early in the game, it looked as if St. Dominic (25-4) would have little problem with the Bulldogs.
The Crusaders made nine of their 10 shots and took a 11-4 lead on a Kelly Schnieders layup with just 3 minutes, 21 second gone in the game. The score capped an 11-0 run to give the Crusaders the 22-16 lead after the first quarter.
“The first quarter we played not to lose (the game) instead of to win,” Notre Dame coach Renee Peters said. “We weren’t playing a real great, aggressive defense. They came in at halftime shooting 70 percent still and we were hoping they weren’t going to ride that wave.”
The Crusaders led most of the way into the fourth quarter until Notre Dame reeled off five straight points after first tying the Crusaders 44-44 on a Jane Morrill jumper with 4:30 left and then a 3-pointer from Allyson Bradshaw just 28 seconds later to put the Bulldogs up 49-44.
“We talked about that stretch in the locker room after the game and we said that it was the back breaker.” Mennemeier said. “We got down by two and I wasn’t too concerned then because it was a tight game. They made that 3-pointer and we never did recover. We knew matching up with those two was going to be our toughest assignment.
“I didn’t tell the team this until after the game. They’re a better team than we are and we still almost beat them. We can’t be upset with that.”
After taking that lead, the Bulldogs made the most of late free throws to earn the win.
Bradshaw led all scorers with 26 points while Morrill added 17 and Meghan Dohogne pitched in 10 for the Bulldogs.
“When we have the ball, it opens things up for everybody else,” Morrill said. “We’re not the key to the offense but everything just rotates. It just works”
Jen Rocha led all Crusaders scorers with 23 points while Schnieders had 14 and Leslie Wilmes added eight points.
“I felt pretty good because it was obviously a big game,” said Rocha of her effort. “You always want to come out and play hard. That’s all I tried to do was to just give my all out there.”
Mennemeier said that’s what she got from the entire team and couldn’t have been happier about it.
“The effort was there,” Mennemeier said. “That’s all I can ask. Nobody thought we’d be here and we are absolutely thrilled just to get a chance to play a great team m like Cape Notre Dame.”
In the loss, St. Dominic made 50 percent of its shots from the field while Cape Notre Dame made 45.5 percent of its shots.
Perhaps the biggest difference was that Notre Dame made 19-of-26 free throws while St. Dominic made 14-of-19 from the free-throw line.
