Surging Saxony girls basketball handles Notre Dame with ease

Deeper than ever before, the Saxony Lutheran girls basketball team is surging into the postseason.

Brianna Mueller finished with a game-high 25 points, and the Crusaders went on a 15-2 run to close the first half in a 59-37 win Thursday at home over Notre Dame.

Saxony is the third-ranked team in the recent Class 3 state rankings and has won 16 straight games, but coach Sam Sides doesn't want his players to start to settle.

"We're pretty deep now, and we've got everybody back contributing," Sides said. "It makes our bench stronger. It makes our practices better. It makes everybody work harder because they know if they're not getting it done, then somebody else is going to get it done, so it helps everybody compete. It just makes us that much better of a basketball team.

"We've gotten better, but we still can play better. We have not played as good as I think we're capable of playing, but we're getting there. We've just got to keep working to get there. That's my hope."

Back-to-back driving layups by Sam Brennan put the Bulldogs ahead 7-4 with 2 minutes, 27 seconds left in the opening period, but Saxony (20-2) answered with an 11-2 run, capped by an 18-foot jumper by Raegan Wieser as time expired in the quarter. The Crusaders led 15-9 heading into the second frame.

It was Wieser's fourth game back from ACL surgery, and Sides believes she's getting closer to returning to the starting lineup. She had 17 points in the Crusaders' 50-44 win over host Dexter on Tuesday before turning in seven points Thursday.

"She's getting there," Sides said about Wieser. "It seems like every day, you can just tell it's a little bit, a little bit. ... It all really depends on how the other girls are doing to some degree. We're trying to keep pressure on each other to become as good of a team as we can and support each other and compete as a team."

Hayli Chapman knocked down a triple from the top of the key that pulled Notre Dame (9-11) within five points, 19-14, at the 5:36 mark of the second quarter. The Crusaders quickly regrouped, as Grace Mirly scored on a long outlet pass 58 seconds later. Saxony added 13 more points to its cushion before halftime, leading 34-16 at the break.

Rather than try to produce points against several mismatches inside, the Crusaders found most of their offense in transition, and they were patient when working in their half-court offense.

"We were trying to beat them because they were playing a pretty aggressive zone," Sides said. "They've got long, tall players, and we're not going to come out very good trying to go through them all the time. We tried to get it down the floor before they got a chance to set up their defense."

Notre Dame coach Renee Peters has seen her fair share of Saxony in recent years, so when her team fell behind by double digits in the first half, she knew it was going to take an extraordinary effort to recover.

"In order to compete with a team like this, we need to be on our best game, and it wasn't really there tonight," Peters said. "... Defensively I thought we did well on the boards, but they overpowered us with their shots. Their shooters did a great job of shooting, and we couldn't hit."

The Crusaders ballooned their lead to 27 points with 37 seconds left in the third period before Megan Heisserer's 3-pointer provided the final points of the period for Notre Dame, which trailed 49-25 heading to the fourth.

Saxony was held scoreless for the first 3:52 of the final period while the Bulldogs rattled off nine straight points to cut their deficit to 49-34 with 4:36 remaining. The Crusaders found some offense in the final minutes and used a 10-3 spurt to close the game.

"We just got a little intimidated," Peters said. "Unfortunately, inconsistency has been kind of a factor for us lately. ... I'm proud of my girls. Our girls will not stop battling. They will play hard, and you saw that all the way through the fourth quarter. They will battle and play hard. It's just that I've got to get them to battle effectively."

Sides said he was particularly impressed with the way his team defended better as the game progressed.

"We're pretty quick, and we can move our feet and get there," Sides said. "I think our team defense is one of the strengths of our team."

Brennan finished with 11 points to lead the Bulldogs, who return to action with another tough matchup Monday against visiting Dexter.

"We've just got to learn to win," Peters said. "It's more fun when you win, but you win when you have fun. ... We take two steps forward, and then take two steps back. At some point, we just need to keep marching on, and that's kind of the message I'm trying to send. I told them, 'You've got to come to practice every day wanting to get better.'"

Saxony begins its postseason march in two weeks when the Class 3 District 2 tournament gets underway from Scott City. The Crusaders will be near full strength, and Sides believes depth could be his team's greatest asset.

"I'm not going to sub just to be subbing," Sides said. "If you're going in there, it's for a purpose or a reason to try to figure out what kind of matchups we're trying to get. We're trying to use our personnel as best we can.

"... We're starting to get healthy again, and we can play pretty good team ball. We share the ball well with each other. They're a great bunch of kids to work with."

Notre Dame 9 7 9 12 -- 37

Saxony 15 19 15 10 -- 59

NOTRE DAME (37) -- Sam Brennan 11, Faith Essner 8, Allie Ziegler 7, Lexi Welter 5, Megan Heisserer 3, Hayli Chapman 3. FG 11, FT 11-19, F 16. (3-pointers: Essner 2, Chapman 1, Heisserer 1. Fouled out: None.)

SAXONY LUTHERAN (59) -- Brianna Mueller 25, Grace Mirly 8, Ali Galemmo 7, Raegan Wieser 7, Maddie Brune 5, Laurel Mueller 2, Tess Daniel 2, Ashlynn Collier 2, Addie Beussink 1. FG 22, FT 12-18, F 13. (3-pointers: Mueller 3. Fouled out: None.)

JV -- Saxony won 43-35