Mt. Pleasant girls routed at home

MT. PLEASANT - The Panther girls were stuck in between a rock and a hard place on Monday night. The rock was a red-hot No. 11 (1A) Notre Dame team that seemingly couldn't miss, and the hard place was Mt. Pleasant's own shooting woes.

Notre Dame knocked down 10 of their first 16 3-pointers of the game and held Mt. Pleasant to its lowest output since the season opener to knock off the Panthers 75-29.

For the first eight minutes, it looked like there would be a slugfest. The Panthers trailed by just three points, at 15-12, after one quarter of play, thanks in part to a couple early layups by Andrea Lopreato.

When the second quarter started, it all changed. Mt. Pleasant went ice cold from the field, and Notre Dame hit shot after shot to turn a back-and-forth contest into a one-sided affair. Notre Dame won the third quarter 27-4 and took a commanding 42-16 lead into halftime. Tristian Shull's five-point half led the Panthers.

'We couldn't find anything to stop them,” said Mt. Pleasant head coach Curt Watson. 'Everything we tried defensively, they were knocking shots down.”

The Panthers couldn't figure Notre Dame out in the third. The Nikes came out of the halftime locker rooms and picked up right where they left off. Notre Dame outscored Mt. Pleasant 22-3 in the third and led 64-19 heading into the final eight minutes.

'You've got to give (Notre Dame) credit,” Coach Watson said. 'They pretty much dominated us for the last three quarters.”

Kenna Lamm led Mt. Pleasant with seven points in the loss. Lopreato finished with six. Shull had five. Kate Schimmelpfennig and Emma Rugg scored three points apiece. Ava Lowery and Emma Starr scored two each, and Karsyn Lamm finished with one.

The Panthers were out starter Emma Huckabone, who suffered an injury in Mt. Pleasant's weekend win over Mediapolis.

Mt. Pleasant is now 9-9 overall. The Panthers will look to improve on that, as well as their 4-4 Southeast Conference record, when they travel to play Burlington (0-12, 0-6) on Friday night.