Cann-do attitude: Sophomore’s goal boosts Raiders to victory over Blue Devils in city series

QUINCY — With the start of the postseason looming just five days away, the Quincy Notre Dame boys soccer players are confident they’re ready for a title chase.

All it takes is a Cann-do attitude.

Thursday night, a sophomore striker showed the Raiders how that looks.

Off a long throw-in from the right sideline, QND’s Tanner Anderson had a ball off his foot get deflected by a Quincy High School defender and ricochet to the foot of the Raiders’ Leo Cann. Left alone as his defender slid toward the middle of the box, Cann one-timed a shot from 15 yards out, giving the Raiders the lead in the 23rd minute and propelling them to a 1-0 victory in the crosstown showdown at Advance Physical Therapy Field.

“I was wide open. I just had to hit it in the back of the net,” Cann said. “Everything was open at that point. I was really close. I noticed no one was in front of me and I placed it right there.”

The moment became euphoric.

“It was unreal,” Cann said. “The roar of the crowd. It was ridiculous. It was like a movie.”

Consider it a prequel then. The curtain drops on the main attraction Tuesday when the top-seeded Raiders open Class 1A regional play at home against ninth-seeded Abingdon-Avon. It will take five consecutive victories to reach the state tournament and seven to wear the crown.

“We have to tighten up a few things and we’ll be good to go,” senior midfielder Ben Frericks said after the Raiders improved to 13-4-3. “But we’re ready.”

Shutting out the Blue Devils is a good sign.

QND squandered a 1-0 lead in the first of the two meetings in the city series, allowing QHS to score in the final 15 minutes and settling for a 1-1 tie. This time, the Raiders were intent on not allowing the Blue Devils to find a second-half surge.

“We worked a lot at practice on controlling their counterattack,” Frericks said. “We tried to control the midfield so they couldn’t get the ball out there in the first place. We locked in pretty well this game.”

The Blue Devils made some tactical adjustments at halftime, and it led to better scoring opportunities. Carter Venvertloh hit the right post in the first 10 minutes of the second half, and both he and Spencer Jenkins had shots tail wide.

Overall, the Blue Devils generated eight shots in the second half after having just one in the first half.

“They took it to us in the first half,” said QHS coach Ron Bridal, whose team is 10-7-3 and opens the Class 3A regional against Belleville East on October 20. “We made some adjustments at halftime, and in the second half, we played quite a bit better. We had some opportunities at the goal, but we weren’t able to execute and put the ball in the back of the net.”

QND senior goalkeeper Ethan Sparrow had a lot to do with that.

Sparrow won several balls in the air, made five saves and controlled the penalty area like a veteran keeper should. QND coach Greg Reis called it one of Sparrow’s better performances of the season.

“He was really good off the line, quick off the line,” Reis said. “He was really good in the air. That’s what I’ve been wanting from him all season. Hopefully if he can keep playing at that level we should be good in the postseason.”

It’s the kind of backbone a championship team relies on.

“Our first 15 to 20 minutes of the game, we kept the ball pinned in their half,” Reis said. “We did a nice job defensively. We kept playing the ball wide and had a lot of crosses into the box. We got away from that, which is what created a lot of trouble for us and forced us to work harder than I thought we needed to.

“We did a decent job of keeping them in front of us. They got in behind us a couple of times, but when they did, Sparrow was there to take care of us.”

And it earned the Raiders another victory in the city series. QND is 7-2-1 in the last 10 crosstown showdowns and has trimmed QHS’s lead in the all-time series to 50-46-14.

“I feel like we could have had a little more possession and controlled the game better,” Frericks said. “But it was a hard-fought battle and we got the ‘W.’ That’s all that really matters.”