RIO GRANDE, Ohio -- In a game befitting two teams seeded fourth and fifth and with identical conference records of 7-6, Notre Dame earned a hard-fought 81-74 overtime victory over Rio Grande Tuesday night in the first round of the American Mideast Conference Qualifying Tournament. (Box)

Senior forward #Dan Jones# continued to have the hot hand for NDC – he had a game-high 26 points. Junior center #Karim McFarlane# added 20, as Notre Dame (19-11) advanced in the tournament; they will now travel to North Canton, Ohio, to face top-seeded Walsh on Saturday. Tuesday's tournament win on the road at Rio came just three days after NDC closed out their regular season with a loss in the same building.

Both NDC and Rio Grande (20-11) came into the game having reached the postseason with 7-6 marks in conference play. Rio earned the No. 4-seed in the tournament, and home court advantage in Tuesday's contest, by way of an 85-67 victory on Saturday (Feb. 21). The tournament features the six AMC teams that placed second through seventh in the final regular season conference standings. The winner earns an automatic bid to the NAIA Division II National Championship Tournament (March 11-17, Point Lookout, Mo.); Cedarville earned the AMC's first bid by virtue of the regular season championship.

In the opening frame Rio Grande built a 12-8 lead by the 15-minute mark. At 9:40, the Red Storm extended their lead to double digits (24-14) when senior guard Aaron Drakeford converted a 3-point play after he was fouled on a jumper. Drakeford nailed a trey two minutes later to put Rio up, 30-15. URG would hit five 3-pointers in the opening 20 minutes.

Notre Dame countered the Rio spurt with a 9-0 run of their own to trail, 30-24, by 5:20.

The first half ended with the home Red Storm holding a five-point advantage, 37-32.

Both fives traded buckets in the early minutes of the second stanza before a 9-2 NDC run put the Falcons up, 49-48. The Red Storm answered, however, and after back-to-back field goals by senior guard Brett Beucler at 9:22 and 8:30, URG had a 61-53 lead.

Notre Dame cut that lead down to three (63-60) by the six-minute mark and brought the proceedings to all-square (63-63) by 4:53.

Four minutes later, the score was 65-65 when Dan Jones had an attempt rejected as the shot clock expired. That gave the ball to URG with 32 ticks remaining. The Red Storm ran the clock down and missed a shot as time expired.

In the extra frame, a #Nick McCartney# free throw at 2:07 put Notre Dame up, 70-67. A pair of tosses by Brandon Ivery at 1:30 brought the Red Storm to within one, at 70-69. Then, with the same score and less than a minute remaining, Dan Jones hit a huge trey to put the Falcons up four, 73-69. Moments later, Jones was fouled, but injured on the play; sophomore guard #Eric Maag# came on and hit one of two free throw attempts. That put the Falcons up, 74-69.

With 30 seconds remaining, freshman forward #Phil Biggs# hit one of two charity tosses to give NDC a 75-69 advantage. Rio would trade two field goals for six NDC points in a final half-minute of desperation clutch-and-foul basketball.

For the game, Notre Dame shot 45.0 percent (27-for-60) from the field. The Falcons out-rebounded the Red Storm, 35-32, and won the game's turnover battle, 13-9.  In addition to Jones' 26 points and McFarlane's 20, freshman forward #Eric Dummermuth# added 14 and McCartney had 10.

Dan Jones scored his 26 points on 9-of-20 shooting from the floor; he was 2-of-4 from beyond the arc and 6-of-9 from the free-throw line. As a team, Notre Dame was 23-of-34 (67.6 percent) from the line. Jones has now led Notre Dame in scoring in six of their last eight games. He has scored 20-plus points in six games this season, and over the Falcons' last 12 games, Jones is averaging 16.8 points and shooting 55.9 percent (71-for-127).

In addition to Jones' 26 points and McFarlane's 20, freshman forward Eric Dummermuth added 14 and McCartney had 10. McFarlane led NDC in rebounds, with nine.

Brett Beucler paced the URG effort with a 21-point game. The loss by the Red Storm snaps a three-game win streak and is only their fifth home loss in 14 games this season.

“This was a big game for a young team like ours to tough it out on the road against a veteran group like Rio Grande,” said Notre Dame Head Coach #Kevin Bille#. “I'm proud of our guys.”

With their win at Rio, the Falcons advance in the tournament. They'll now play at Walsh on Saturday (Feb. 28) afternoon at 4 p.m. Walsh is the No. 1 seed in the tournament; the Cavaliers are 25-3 on the season and are ranked No. 4 in the nation. Notre Dame and Walsh met a week-and-a-half ago (Feb. 14), with the Cavaliers claiming an 83-66 victory in North Canton.


NOTES FROM THE NEST…

FAB FROSH: Eric Dummermuth hit an NDC Men's Basketball milestone in the Falcons' game on Tuesday. With his 14 points, Dummermuth broke the program's freshman scoring record previously held by Jerome Pierce (2004-08). Pierce scored 502 points in his freshman campaign four years ago (2004-05). In his freshman season, Dummermuth now has 511 points. He set the new NDC mark in one more game; he has played in 30 contests this year, compared to Pierce's 29 games in 2004-05. … Dummermuth pulled down seven boards against URG. He now has 273 rebounds this season; that's just 10 behind NDC's single-season record of 283 set by Paul Benjamin in 2003-04.

UNOH ADVANCES: Tuesday's other AMC Qualifying Tournament match-up featured No. 6 seed Daemen-N.Y. (20-9) traveling to No. 3 Northwestern Ohio (17-13). UNOH won that game, 100-81; they'll now travel to Mount Vernon Nazarene to face the second-seeded Cougars on Saturday (7:30 p.m.) After the games at Walsh and Mount Vernon, the highest remaining seed will host the championship game on March 3.