Notre Dame won the rubber match.

In a District 11 Class 3A semifinal, Notre Dame ended Catasauqua’s run toward defending their district title with a 74-60 victory at Northampton High School Wednesday night.

Still, the third-seeded Rough Riders will meet top-seeded Minersville, who was upset by Executive Education, in the consolation game Saturday at Pottsville’s Martz Hall in a 1 p.m. tipoff with a state bid on the line.

During their two previous meetings this season, top-seeded Notre Dame (23-3) beat Catasauqua, 73-63, during the regular season, and Catty returned the favor by stopping them in the Colonial League semifinals, 72-65. Catasauqua (20-6) won its first district title since 2006 last season, and the Roughies advanced to the second round of the state playoffs.

However, the Roughies couldn’t find their mark the entire night, and they had trouble handling Notre Dame’s physical play. The Roughies trailed 25-17 at the end of the first quarter, but they went on a 9-2 run late in the second quarter to narrow the gap to 34-30 at halftime.

Yet, Catty failed to keep its momentum, as they trailed 54-47 after three quarters. They trailed 60-50 with five minutes left to play.

Aalani Nix led the Roughies with 18 points, and Hamaad Jenkins added 14. Justin Manning, the Colonial League MVP, had 11 of his game-high 30 points in the fourth quarter for Notre Dame.

Catty had trouble with its shooting and had trouble stopping Notre Dame’s inside game.

“Their shot chart was everything in the lane,” said Roughies head coach Eric Snyder. “We didn’t help on defense and we allowed them to get to the rim. In the third and fourth quarters, they killed us with their amount of inside shots and layups.

“We struggled with our outside shooting, and we just couldn’t get over the hump in the fourth quarter. They were better than us and deserved to win.”

Reece Lopez, one of four starting seniors who had seven points, believed his team needed a more focused effort.

“I think we weren’t aggressive enough on defense and it led to them getting easy shots on offense,” said Lopez. “We kept running the same offense, and we weren’t converting good shots or making the shots we needed to make.”

Jenkins, another senior, noted the lack of their usual tight bond on the floor.

“It wasn’t anyone’s fault in particular, it was more of a team loss,” offered Jenkins. “We weren’t playing as much of team basketball as we usually do, we couldn’t execute defenses we usually have a strong suit in and the main problem was being more patient on offense.

“At the end of the day, we may think we wanted it more, but they surely showed they did physically.”

Snyder is optimistic his club can bounce back Saturday.

“Hopefully, we can have a good game to advance to the state playoffs,” he said. “It will give us another shot, and you never know what could happen.”