Road to redemption: QND takes first step to regaining sectional soccer championship

MENDOTA, Ill. — There will come a time when the Quincy Notre Dame boys soccer players will appreciate and yearn for the opportunity to take an afternoon nap.

It might happen Thursday.

Following Wednesday night’s 9-2 shellacking of Serena in the Class 1A Mendota Sectional semifinals, the Raiders embarked on a four-hour charter bus ride back to the Gem City. No one expected it to be a subdued trip either.

“It’s only ever quiet after a loss,” junior forward Leo Cann said.

With pizza being delivered to the bus for the post-game meal and the enthusiasm sparked by the goal-scoring outburst, none of the Raiders expected to sleep much until the final stretch of their journey.

“Once we eat and feel all full, then we’ll get some sleep,” Cann said. “It’ll be pretty noisy for a while. It’s everyone all together. I don’t think we have a speaker on the bus this time, but usually we have some music going. Everybody just enjoys it.”

Just not too much. School beckons Thursday morning.

“I’m not looking forward to that,” senior midfielder John Drew said. “Not at all.”

There won’t be any naptime either, not with a sectional championship rematch with Mendota (19-6) looming at 3 p.m. Saturday on the Trojans’ own field. Mendota knocked QND out of the postseason with a 3-2 victory in the sectional title game last year.

Memories and reminders of what happened are bound to pop up the next couple of days, beginning with Thursday afternoon’s training session.

“Revenge will be mentioned probably a few times,” said QND coach Greg Reis, whose team is 15-6-2. “I won’t overkill it. The thing I’m going to stress is us not giving up opportunities versus creating opportunities because I think we’ll get our chances.”

The scoring chances were in abundance the first 20 minutes against Serena.

Five minutes into the game, Cann took a feed from Tanner Anderson and buried the shot for a 1-0 lead. Four minutes later, the Raiders earned a corner kick and freshman forward Cole Henkenmeier swung the ball into the box from the right corner and watched it bounce and curl into the net for a 2-0 lead.

“Any game you go into, you want to get out of the gate early,” Anderson said. “To be able to get on them that soon, that quickly, it was big for us. It was big momentum.”

Serena seemed to stem the tide momentarily when the pressure it applied in the attacking third led to an unfortunate bounce and an own goal, trimming QND’s lead in half with only 10:50 elapsed.

However, just 53 seconds later, Raiders senior midfielder Brock Evans scored to make it a two-goal game again. Cann scored twice more before halftime, finishing a Drew assist and blasting a shot from 20 yards out to make it 5-1 after less than 25 minutes.

“We knew we had to come out and take care of the game quick,” Drew said. “We did just that.”

There was a vibe that might happen during the pregame buildup.

“It was our work rate,” Anderson said. “We came out firing. We were playing well in warmups, and I think the warmups led to the beginning of the game where we came out quick. It was really good for us.”

Anderson and Cann scored 17 seconds apart in the second half, Jake Hoyt added a penalty kick and Jake Schisler hit a shot from 35 yards out to finish off a four-goal second half.

It all was made possible by the opening flurry.

“We did a good job of setting the tone,” Reis said.

That applies to the game and the postseason run.

“Another win down,” Anderson said. “More to go.”