Springfield’s Charles Cunningham held the previous record with 28 points against Kenton Ridge last season.
McDermott was happier about bringing home a victory as the Warriors snapped a four-game losing streak.
“It was a big win, a momentum builder,” McDermott said. “We lost a few straight and to pick one up helps.”
Northwestern led 29-23 at the half, but exploded for 24 points in the third quarter to pull away.
“It feels excellent to get a win,” said Warriors coach Ron Long. “We dropped four straight, and I just told them guys in there that there was two things we could have done. We could have laid down and just felt sorry for ourselves. But as we know and we talk to these guys about all the time, got to just persevere through it and what we saw today was just a glimpse of where, when we serve each other’s needs, not our own needs, but each other needs, what it possibly could look like.”
The Warriors ramped up the pressure defensively in the third quarter, getting easy buckets in transition. McDermott had 11 points in the period.
“We gelled like we did the first game of season,” he said. “The ball has been sticking a little bit, but it flowed well today. Our defense just picked up the intensity, played fast, and then we saw some threes go in, and that helped us a lot.”
The key was McDermott’s ability to get this teammates involved.
“The (32 points) he has always been able to do,” Long said. “He had nine (rebounds) and eight (assists) and that was the difference.
“The challenge for him has always been because he’s always gonna be (the other team’s) target; Scoring is easy for him, it comes first nature. … If he just makes the other ones around him better, it becomes contagious, not just for him, but for other people. I’m really impressed with the way in which he led us today.”
Irish senior Keegan Guenther had a team-high 27 points for Catholic Central, which fell to 2-4 overall.
Tecumseh 65, Greenon 51: Tecumseh entered Monday’s game against Greenon without its two top scorers, seniors Chase Stafford and Corey Russell. The duo averages a combined 38.7 points per game.
“We’ve always felt like we had eight or nine kids that could start,” said Arrows coach Kyle Leathley. “I mean, obviously, both of those kids are, they’re really good. You can play without them, but figuring out how to play without them takes time, and it’s hard to do sometimes, like (Stafford’s) got the ball so much. Corey dominates the ball so much. So I told them we’ve got to make up 50 points today.”
Greenon led by six points early in the game. Trailing 19-17 in the second quarter, the Arrows went on a 21-10 run to grab the lead for good.
Tecumseh senior Austin Clark had 17 points, junior Jayden Hall and sophomore Reid Olinger each had 13 points and Brycen Dixon added 11 for the Arrows, who improved to 6-2.
“We have some guys that can make some shots,” Leathley said. “This is getting those guys set up, but proud of their effort. I think we’ve got some good players in that room, outside of (Stafford and Russell). I think it’s an opportunity to show us they can do those kind of things. So we’re pretty happy overall, just getting a win is what we were looking for coming out of today.”
Knights senior Ethan Rychnovsky and junior Teagan Henry each had 12 points and senior Brock Spangler added 11 for Greenon, which dropped its second straight game and fell to 3-4 overall.
Emmanuel Christian 61, Northeastern 53: Lions senior Nate Hudson had 20 points and junior Josh Witherow added 16 as Emmanuel Christian won its eighth straight game.
They jumped out to a 20-7 first quarter lead and never trailed the rest of the way.
The Lions had nine players out with illnesses over the last week. They’d practiced just twice in the last week, including a walkthrough before Monday’s game, said Lions coach Nick Morgan.
Hudson and Witherow combined for 23 of Emmanuel’s 32 first half points.
“Teams have to come and prepare for those guys,” Morgan said. “We’re really blessed with a bunch of other guys that can come in. If teams come in really prepared for those two, we’ve got four or five more guys that can just come in and hit shots and disrupt flow, and we can get out and run a little bit. We kind of got away from what we like to do a little bit. I think I’ll chalk that up to some conditioning stuff that we’ll fix.”
Shawnee 50, Southeastern 25: Braves senior Adrian Jones hit six 3-pointers - one shy of tying a school record - as Shawnee pulled away in the second half. They held the Trojans to 14 points in the second half.
Shawnee sophomore Derek Boehmer added 15 points for the Braves, who improved to 3-4 overall.
Southeastern fell to 1-7.
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