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Grant captures a big victory at Notre Dame

Add videographer and tweeter to the list of responsibilities of Grant boys basketball coach Wayne Bosworth.

After wins, the Bulldogs have a tradition that requires Bosworth to put his camera and social media skills to use.

"Whenever we get a big win, we take a video of us celebrating and we put it on Twitter," junior guard Matt McGraw said with a laugh. "It was a lit one tonight.

"Bos (Bosworth) filmed it. Look for it on the Grant Twitter."

That's @GrantBoysHoops, for those who are curious to watch the Bulldogs' latest celebration footage. It was filmed from Niles, where Grant got a huge 63-57 nonconference victory over Notre Dame in its old school Hoosiers-like gym.

McGraw scored a career-high 15 points, including 11 points in a nip-and-tuck fourth quarter, and also pulled down a game-high 10 rebounds.

After holding on for the victory, the Bulldogs, now 5-8 on the season, were holed up in their locker room making one version of their celebration video. They took another on the bus ride home, and that one was posted on Twitter less than an hour after the final horn sounded.

"This means a lot to us," said Bosworth, whose young team of mostly first-year varsity juniors struggled over the holidays. "We know the type of team we are capable of being. We didn't really do that much at Jacobs (holiday tournament). We lost three games there by a total of 7 points. The ball didn't bounce our way a few times. But we didn't do what we needed to do to win ball games. So this was the best we've played this year collectively as a team, as a group, and all those small areas we've talked about that we weren't doing before, we did tonight.

"And when you do the small things, it adds up to a big win."

Down 32-26 at halftime, Grant doubled up on Notre Dame in the third quarter, outscoring the Dons 14-7.

Junior guard Torren Curry (9 total points) dropped in two of his three 3-pointers for the Bulldogs in the third quarter.

"At the start of the third quarter, Torren made those big threes that gave us some momentum and then we played some solid defense," McGraw said. "This was a great win. It's a tough place to play. This means a lot to our team because we're going into conference play next week and we've got a big game against North Chicago and this will give us a lot of great momentum going into that."

McGraw gave the Bulldogs some great momentum in the fourth quarter. With the game tied at 44-44 with about six minutes remaining, McGraw scored 5 straight points to give Grant a 49-44 lead. That run continued and Grant built a 55-46 lead with about two minutes remaining.

"Defensively we struggled in the second half and we didn't play with the toughness we needed," Notre Dame coach Kevin Clancy said. "We didn't finish possessions with rebounds and that led to a lot of buckets for them. We cost ourselves with that with their run late."

A young team, Notre Dame (8-8) was led in scoring by two freshmen and a sophomore. Troy D'Amico, a 6-foot-5 freshman forward, finished with a team-high 15 points while freshman guard Anthony Sayles had 14 points. Sophomore guard Jason Bergstrom added 13 points.

"We are learning a lot. Every game is a learning experience for us trying to get better," D'Amico said. "We just have to work harder on defense. We got tired on defense tonight. It all fell apart on defense."

In addition to McGraw, two other players scored in double-figures for Grant. Junior guard Henry Kusiak finished with a game-high 16 points and junior forward Hunter Waszkowski had 12 points.

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