SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) — Braeden Shrewsberry and Markus Burton scored 18 points each and Notre Dame opened its season with an 89-60 victory over Stonehill on Wednesday night.
Matt Allocco added 10 points for the Fighting Irish and Kebba Njie grabbed 10 rebounds to go with nine points.
Todd Brogna scored 16 points and Ethan Meuser and Louie Semona had 11 each for the Skyhawks (1-1).
Shrewsberry hit a 3-pointer to open the second half, giving Notre Dame a 20-point lead. Several minutes later the lead reached 27 when Burton finished off a driving layup.
Notre Dame’s lead didn’t change much in the final 13 minutes with Stonehill once getting within 21. Garrett Sundra’s layup with about a minute to go gave the Irish their largest lead and was the final basket of the game.
Notre Dame led 19-16 midway through the first half, then a 10-0 run helped build a 46-29 halftime lead. Shrewsberry scored 10 points in the first half on 4-of-6 shooting that included two 3-pointers.
After essentially starting from scratch last year in the debut season of Micah Shrewsberry as coach, Notre Dame returns 85.6% of its scoring this season, by far the most in the ACC.
Notre Dame and Stonehill are sister schools sponsored by the Congregation of Holy Cross and share a number of academic programs. They last met in basketball in 1982, a 74-60 victory for Notre Dame.
Stonehill beat Framingham State 81-62 to open the season on Monday.
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The Associated Press